A new day is dawning over Middle-earth: after years of waiting and speculation, Amazon Prime Video’s much-discussed prequel to The Lord of the Rings has arrived. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is set during the Second Age of Middle-earth, when Elves were still reckoning with their immortality, Sauron was learning ring-craft, and ancient hobbits called harfoots roamed the land in nomadic bands.
Now that the first two episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power are finally out, we can talk about them in detail. Does the show live up to its half a billion dollar budget?
We’re going to get into everything about Episodes 1 and 2 below. There will be SPOILERS.
The Rings of Power Episode 1 review: “Shadow of the Past”
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power begins by introducing Galadriel as a child. Far removed from the imperious Elven ruler of Lothlórien who was played by Cate Blanchett in Peter Jackson’s films, Galadriel was a dreamer in her youth, creating little paper boats to sail down streams and being bullied by the other Elven kids.
There’s something that struck me as a little odd about this sequence. It’s an important moment for Galadriel, because it lets us see her relationship with her brother Finrod (Will Fletcher) as well as the golden land of Valinor, where the Elves lived immortally in peace before the dark lord Morgoth started a war. Both of those things are important.
But I found it odd that the Elves act far more human in The Rings of Power than the ethereal beings they are in The Lord of the Rings films or books. Which, actually, is kind of the point; these are younger Elves who don’t quite have the same handle on their immortality and are still prone to the types of flaws you’d expect of mortals. It’s a recurring theme of the show, but it does take a little getting used to.
After this opening scene, we’re thrust into the thick of things with a long montage that explains the War of Wrath, how Galadriel’s brother died during his search for Morgoth’s missing lieutenant Sauron, and how his quest to destroy Sauron has now fallen to Galadriel, centuries later. This sequence is breathtaking and firmly establishes the tone and scope of the show. I shouted out loud when a fell beast tore a giant eagle out of the sky, throwing it down onto the battling armies below, where it burst into flames. The show is littered with these types of stunning visuals.
But it’s not just the epic moments that make The Rings of Power feel cinematic. Even the smaller moments, like Galadriel arguing with her second-in-command as she leads one last sortie into the frozen wastes of the north in search of Sauron’s stronghold has a slightly more movie-like feel to it. A while back, The Rings of Power premiere director J.A. Bayona claimed that the show “is not television. It’s a new form we’re creating here.” Like most of the Internet, I scoffed at this claim — how many times have we heard from studios that their new big budget fantasy and sci-fi shows are “more like 10-hour movies” in the past few years? But after seeing The Rings of Power, it’s easy to see what Bayona meant.
Galadriel has a twisty quest in this first episode that establishes her as a flawed character stuck in her own struggles. Her soldiers mutiny against her rather than follow her further into the wastes in search of Sauron, especially after they endure a surprise snow troll attack. Rather than shame her for this, the Elven High King Gil-Galad (Benjamin Walker) gives her and her entire unit the honor of being shipped back home to Valinor.
Galadriel’s horror at this supposed honor is a great touch. While just about any other Elf would be overjoyed, she still has business to attend to on Middle-earth. A lot of this conflict is conveyed through her conversations with Elrond, played by Robert Aramayo (young Ned Stark on Game of Thrones). Aramayo is fantastic as Elrond; even more than Morfydd Clark, it is so easy to see him as a younger version of the iconic Lord of the Rings character played by Hugo Weaving in the Peter Jackson movies. It’s all in the subtleties, like when he murmurs “it’s almost as though I didn’t wish to be found” to an Elven messenger without bothering to look up from his book.
In the end, Galadriel does get on the ship back to Valinor. I think the moment where the clouds part and the golden light of the Elven paradise shines through is one that will give any hardcore Tolkien fan chills. The Elves actually sing like they do in the books.
But it’s too much for Galadriel. Remembering a slightly overwrought bit of advice she got from her brother as a child in that opening sequence about needing to touch the shadow to tell where the true light is, she jumps overboard. That’s a mighty long swim back to Middle-earth, but hey, when you’re an immortal Elf those things matter a bit less, I guess.
She also jumps ship because she sees something in the sky. More on that below…
Fun times with the harfoots
If I’ve talked a lot about Galadriel and the Elves so far, it’s because they’re pretty much the main focus of the premiere episode. However, The Rings of Power is a sprawling show with an enormous cast, and we do meet a few other memorable characters in the premiere.
My personal favorite was Nori Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh), a harfoot who wants to roam beyond the confines of her tight-knit community. Nori is mischievous and kind-hearted, bringing the children of the village out to pick berries and generally rebelling against any boundaries set on her. The harfoots as a whole are a blast. Unlike the homebody hobbits from The Lord of the Rings, the harfoots have yet to settle in the Shire and wander the land as nomads. It’s a cool bit of worldbuilding that once more drives home how this is the same Middle-earth, but different.
This is also as good a place as any to mention the score by Bear McCreary. The music does a lot of heavy lifting in this show; really, it’s one of the best aspects of the entire production. McCreary’s music for the harfoots perfectly captures the fun nature of their scenes. Meanwhile, Galadriel’s music is more sweeping and epic, and the humans of the Southlands have a stringed arrangement that recalls Rohan. The music elevates the production.
Nori’s story in the premiere mostly serves to introduce her and her community. Not much changes…right up until the end, when a meteor streaks across the skies of Middle-earth. It’s seen by a bunch of characters spread across the map, from Gil-Galad to the harfoots and beyond.
As it happens, there’s a man inside the meteor who is referred to in the show as the stranger. He crashes down right beside the harfoot dwelling, where Nori finds him just before the credits roll.
A map as big as Middle-earth
There’s one other main plotline that The Rings of Power focuses on in its premiere: the Southlands. It’s here we learn more about the humans of Middle-earth. During the War of Wrath, many of them fought for the dark lord Morgoth. As such, they are policed in the Second Age by Elven warriors who keep an eye out for any signs of the darkness returning. This dynamic means that many humans are resentful of the Elves, almost viewing them as subjugators. It’s a fascinating turn.
Most of this information is conveyed through the Elven warrior Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) and the human village healer Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi), who have an attraction that neither can fully express. Despite solid performances from both actors, these events didn’t quite grab me the same way as the rest of the episode…at least up until the end, when we find out that the neighboring town has been destroyed by an ominous disaster. I’m sure we’ll see more of these characters and grow to enjoy them, but out of the gate it was the slow part of the episode for me.
Really, the pacing is on the whole one of the things I expect people to struggle with. “Shadow of the Past” is a slow burn, with only one real action scene over the course of over an hour of television. It works — I was never anything less than enraptured — but it does set us up for a more deliberately paced, purposeful journey.
The Bullet Points of Power
- The map overlays that introduced new locations was a nice touch which I appreciated a lot. Those maps even look to be in the style of Tolkien, who famously drew his own maps for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
- Near the end of the episode, Elrond is introduced to Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards), a great Elven architect who is in need of a helper. We won’t say much about Celebrimbor here for spoilers, but suffice it to say that his name should set off bells of recognition for Silmarillion readers.
- I keep thinking about that poor cow, which clued in Arondir to the dark malevolence in the Southlands because it squirted some black goop out of its udders. Someone is getting that looked at, right?
- The ancient wargs/wolves are cool to see here, though I don’t particularly like them stalking around the harfoot camp. Leave Nori alone, wargs!
- Did you catch the Ents that saw the stranger streak across the sky? These little touches were a much appreciated.
Verdict
“Shadow of the Past” was an extremely solid start for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. It feels a bit like the show is focused more on the world of Middle-earth itself than the specific characters, but overall it did such a great job of introducing everyone, as well as the complex dynamics between races. After years of worrying that Amazon would make some horrible monstrosity of an adaptation, it is with a profound sigh of relief that I report The Rings of Power’s premiere was good enough to make me confident in the episodes to come.
But since Prime Video wants to really make sure to hook us with this premiere, it gave us not one, but two episodes of The Rings of Power to start things off. Now that we’ve talked about the first, it’s time to dig into the second.
Episode 1 Grade: A-
The Rings of Power Episode 2 review: “Adrift”
Considering how much set up the first episode of The Rings of Power did, “Adrift” is able to hit the ground running. As with “Shadow of the Past,” our characters are all over the map, though by the end we start to get hints of how they could come together.
Perhaps the biggest cliffhanger of the series premiere was Galadriel’s decision to hop off the boat to Valinor and literally swim back to Middle-earth. If that sounds like an ill-advised plan, it is. Galadriel swims for a while before coming across some stranded humans. There’s a bit of tension as they realize she’s an Elf. But that’s short lived; only a few minutes later, an enormous sea creature comes up and wrecks the raft, killing everyone except for Galadriel and a man named Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), who cut his own bit of flotsam off from the rest of the group to escape.
From there, Galadriel and Halbrand spend several scenes dancing around their pasts; Halbrand’s home was destroyed by orcs, and Galadriel wants him to tell her where it is without really sharing anything about herself. Ultimately, we find out Halbrand hailed from the Southlands — the very same area where Arondir and Bronwyn are uncovering a malevolent presence.
Galadriel doesn’t have much time to make plans, though. After she and Halbrand weather a torrential storm (where he shows his better qualities by saving her life), they awaken to the sight of a ship looming over them. Bear McCreary’s Númenor theme plays, hinting that next week we’ll see the fabled city of Aragorn’s ancestors.
Galadriel’s section of this episode was more contained than Episode 1, but it featured some cool scenes as she made her way across the Shuddering Sea.
Trouble in the Southlands
Since we just mentioned the Southlands, we’ll head there next. After discovering that a nearby town had been destroyed, Arondir and Bronwyn find a strange tunnel amidst the devastation. Arondir tells Bronwyn to go back and warn her fellow humans while he slips into the tunnel by himself in order to track down whatever dug it. They get more moments to play up their romance here, and I found myself caring about it slightly more. Arondir explores the tunnels until he’s snatched by gnarled orcish hands. Meanwhile, Bronwyn gets back to her village but no one will listen to her about the danger.
Things start to get really interesting when they focus in on Bronwyn’s son Theo. After he discovers a broken blade in the basement of his neighbor’s barn — a blade that bears the mark of Sauron — Theo finds himself in the episode’s tensest sequence. In both Episodes 1 and 2, Theo complains about mice beneath the floorboards of his house. Succumbing to the dark influence of the sword, he finally freaks out and breaks a hole in the floorboards to scare them off. However, what he finds isn’t mice, but a tunnel just like the one Arondir was exploring. He also injures his hand, which allows blood to flow up onto the sword. The sword seemingly drinks his blood, and begins to regenerate.
All of that is certainly intriguing, but there isn’t much time to consider it before it becomes clear that the tunnel is inhabited by a very scary orc. The sequence where both Theo and Bronwyn are hiding in their house while the orc tries to sniff them out is a highlight. That orc looks more terrifying than I expected; the costuming and camerawork are excellent.
After the orc discovers them and they dispatch it in a chaotic fight, Bronwyn brings its head to the other villagers to convince them it’s time to leave their homes and hole up in the nearby tower the Elven garrison has just abandoned. But Theo is bringing his broken evil sword, and that doesn’t bode well.
The hammers of Khazad-Dûm
Perhaps my favorite storyline of “Adrift” takes place in Khazad-Dûm, the great dwarven city which will become the abandoned ruin of Moria by the time of The Lord of the Rings. In the Second Age, it’s a breathtaking underground metropolis. I can’t stress that enough; Khazad-Dûm is gorgeous to look at, and the music is fantastic at making us feel like we’ve just seen a wonder beyond imagining.
Elrond claims his friendship with the dwarves is strong enough that they’ll help his new pal Celebrimbor build a tower with an exceptionally hot forge, which he wants to use to make his masterpiece. (Again, book readers are probably side-eyeing this whole proposition. If you know you know.)
Despite Elrond’s insistence, he receives a frosty welcome at Khazad-Dûm. Turns out that his old friend Durin (Owain Arthur) is more than a little peeved that Elrond hasn’t visited him in 50 years. To an Elf that’s only the blink of an eye, but Durin has lived an entire lifetime in those years, and is now married with kids. (Elrond didn’t even go to the wedding!) Again, I’m really enjoying how The Rings of Power is exploring ideas from a different angle than The Lord of the Rings, showing how Elves weren’t quite used to being immortal here, at least not in the same way as they are in the Third Age.
After a rock breaking contest and a comedically tense dinner where we meet Durin’s wife Princess Disa (Sophia Nomvete), the two finally make nice and Durin hears out Elrond’s proposal for the dwarves to help make Celebrimbor’s tower forge. This scene is a lot of fun, largely because of Nomvete’s excellent portrayal of Disa, who puts the pressure on her husband to get along with Elrond.
But despite Elrond thinking his mission is success, the dwarves have a secret of their own. Hopefully we’ll see more of whatever glowing object Durin’s father is hiding in that chest next week.
A stranger amidst the harfoots
Finally, we come to Nori Brandyfoot. Nori’s story in “Adrift” focuses on her attempts to help the mysterious stranger who fell from the sky at the end of the series premiere. By the end, we still know very little about him…but what hints we get are intriguing. He can seemingly communicate with animals, as he does with the fireflies in Nori’s lantern. He has some kind of immense power he can only barely control; more than once Nori has to appeal to him with her hobbity innocence in order to get him to calm down.
Overall, Nori’s tale remains the lightest of the stories, though with these teases about the stranger’s mysterious identity, there’s certainly enough to keep things engaging.
However, Nori is so focused on helping her new friend that she skips out on helping her father put up a large tentpole. It falls, he twists his ankle pretty bad, and now the rest of the harfoots are concerned he won’t be able to manage the long walk to migrate when the time comes. It’s a little bit of down-to-earth tension, which fits perfectly with the overall tone of Nori’s story. This was the set up on top of the set up; how will this stranger affect the wider world? Stay tuned.
The Bullet Points of Power
- The rock breaking contest between Elrond and Durin was fun. Robert Aramayo does excellent work here, showing the shrewder side of Elrond as a politician through lots of subtle expressions.
- Anyone who has experienced the sound of mice in their walls or floor could probably relate to Theo’s outburst. I cheered, I laughed, and then I gasped when I realized he had unearthed something far more sinister than rodents. What a great scene.
- The fight with the orc was intense. Orcs were so casually dispatched in Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films that one or two alone rarely ever felt like a threat. Samwise Gamgee literally defeats some with a frying pan in the first movie. But this orc is as terrifying as it is brutal, and it feels like Bronwyn and Theo only triumph by the skin of their teeth.
- Since we’re talking about the movies, Halbrand gives off some serious Aragorn vibes. Was that on purpose? Because if it was, it’s working.
Verdict
“Adrift” was just as solid as the first episode of The Rings of Power, while giving us a lot more action, politicking, and marvelous vistas. Khazad-Dûm was wonderous, the orc fight was scary, and the overall feeling is that the show is starting to move forward. Combine it with the promise of seeing Númenor next week, and I’m sold. The Rings of Power is officially off to a great start.
Episode grade: A-
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