The Rings of Power falls back on boring, shallow storytelling in “The Eye”

Hard times for harfoots

After not appearing at all in last week’s episode, Nori (Markella Kavenagh), the Stranger (Daniel Weyman), and the harfoots are back this week. They’ve finally arrived at the Grove, a haven that the ancient migratory hobbits go to as a regular part of their travels, only to find that it has been destroyed by flaming rocks which zipped over from Mount Doom. So now we know that they’ve been wandering relatively close to the Southlands.

Since the harfoot grove is blackened from magma rocks, the harfoots finally decide to trust the Stranger and ask him to heal their trees. He tries, a branch falls, and a little harfoot is almost crushed. Why didn’t anyone stop that little harfoot from approaching the tree? Because it was what the plot demanded; after his seemingly failed attempt and that close call for baby harfoot, the Stranger and Nori are on the outs and he leaves.

Only then do we find out the white-robed figures from a couple episodes back are closing in. Poppy (Megan Richards) discovers their footprints nearby, then rushes home so fast she leaves her basket behind. Why would she throw her basket down right next to a suspicious track that she’s going to warn her people about? Because the plot needed that to happen so that the bad guys could pick up the basket and know the harfoots were close. Again, we’re just moving along from point to point here, no reason to think too hard about it.

The white-robes come to the grove looking for the Stranger. Nori, having softened on the guy after she woke up to find the grove magically restored to life the next morning, points them in the wrong direction, but they’re not buying it. They use their magic to set fire to the entire harfoot settlement. This is another moment that should feel devastating, but for some reason just doesn’t have much emotional resonance. And as for the white-robes, we don’t learn a single new thing about them. Even if the finale pulls off some grand reveal about who they are, it feels like it’ll be too little too late.

Ultimately, the white-robes leave to pursue the Stranger, and the following morning Nori, Poppy, Nori’s mother Marigold (Sara Zwangobani) and pathfinder Sadoc Burrows (Lenny Henry) set out to go warn their tall friend of the danger. It’s a fun note to leave things on that a small fellowship of harfoots are setting out on a quest, it’s just too bad that there’s only one episode left this season to explore it.

Dissent amongst Durins

The rest of “The Eye” revolves around Elrond (Robert Aramayo) trying to convince the dwarves to mine enough mithril to help the elves restore their immortality. I’ll be honest, it’s a little hard for me to be objective about the mithril plotline in general, because I hate it on premise. Assigning mithril this kind of mystical quality feels like a huge departure from Tolkien’s work, and I’m generally confused about why it’s being done in the first place.

That said, the dwarven sections continue to be some of the strongest in the show. Owain Arthur is fantastic as Durin IV, Sophia Nomvete is wonderful as Princess Disa, and Aramayo is always solid. These are the only characters on The Rings of Power that I really feel a deep emotional connection for, because the show has spent a sizable amount of time developing their relationships.

However, despite Durin IV’s insistence that his people help Elrond, his father Durin III (Peter Mullan) refuses to delve too greedily and too deeply on behalf of elves. He makes the very reasonable argument that the fate of the elven people was decided in a different Age, by far greater powers than himself.

But Durin IV sees a way to help his friend. The two go alone into the mines and do indeed discover an enormous mithril vein, only for Durin III to put a stop to the whole thing and kick Elrond out of Khazad-Dûm.

We then get what was simultaneously one of the best and most frustrating scenes of the episode. Durin III and Durin IV discuss their situation, with the elder dwarf recalling the birth of his son and how he knew he’d go on to greatness. Mullan’s acting is absolutely fantastic in this scene, as is Arthur’s when he shoots back lines about how his father is suffocating his own ambitions.

Then the writing slips. Moments after Durin IV brings up his late wife, his son says that Elrond is as close to him as if they’d been born in the same womb. The king is outraged that his son would use his mother’s memory to defend an elf, which is kind of absurd considering that he was the one who brought her into the conversation in the first place.

Then King Durin rips a golden necklace off of Durin III. The scene plays it off as an extremely dramatic moment…but up until that point not a single line is devoted to explaining the significance of the necklace. We’re left to piece together after the fact that it was a symbol of Durin IV being heir to the throne, and by removing it his father has disinherited him. That’s a great, dramatic turn. But by not setting it up beforehand, we don’t know what stripping it means when it happens. It’s aggravating to watch this show trip over itself like this so far into the season.

Ultimately, Durin III orders that the mithril vein be sealed up…but not before a leaf blows into it, down into the deep, where it settles at the foot of a Balrog — you know, the one Gandalf will one day fight in The Fellowship of the Ring. This reveal is something the show has been working toward ever since it introduced Khazad-Dûm as a locale, yet in the end it just felt like a lame bit of fan service. Here’s hoping that it handles the actual emergence of the Balrog better than the reveal that it exists.

The Bullet Points of Power

• In the episode’s final scene, we see Adar say that the orcs’ new home should have a name suitable to their own tongue. As he ponders what it might be, the shot pans to Mount Doom and a subtitle appears that shows the name change from “The Southlands” to “Mordor.” Again, just going about it in the least dramatic way possible.
• I’m also a little confused about the whole “volcano turns the Southlands into Mordor forever” thing. The initial eruption was a great twist…but that volcano is just going to, what, keep belching fire indefinitely for thousands of years? I wish we’d gotten a little bit more about how that works.
• Miriel’s blindness is a pretty interesting turn. She’s seemed to really grow into her own throughout this episode, and I’m intrigued to see how her experiences will change things when she returns to Númenor.
• The Númenoreans pledged to return to help the people of the Southlands in their fight against the orcs. Elendil struggling with that pledge was one of the better emotional beats of the episode. Even though the viewer knows Isildur will obviously return, Owen does a great job conveying Elendil’s pain.
• Galadriel tells Theo that she had a husband once, named Celeborn, who perished in the war against Morgoth. I’m a little confused about that, both because she hasn’t mentioned it once up until now so it feels tacked on rather than a real part of her character development, and also because in Lord of the Rings Celeborn is still very much around. Presumably they’re sitting him up to come back at some point so they can have a tearful reunion?
• Who wants to bet that Halbrand will get healed with Kingsfoil, the same herb used by Aragorn? Fan service, it’s what’s on the menu.
• Making Durin IV’s mining for mithril an altruistic quest to save the elves is a tricky thing, because if that ends up being what wakes the Balrog it’ll be really hard to blame it on the dwarves delving too greedily and too deep, which will upend the whole point of the thematic idea there that greed can lead to one’s own ruin. We’ll see how it plays out, but I’m not super confident right now.
• After this episode, I wonder if the Stranger is Sauron? His magic has often included sound effects similar to the ones we hear when Sauron showed up in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies, and those evil-looking people are off searching for him. Maybe Sauron was banished or thought dead after his last encounter with Adar and was reborn as a meteor man? Maybe we’ll find out next episode.

Verdict

This was the penultimate episode of The Rings of Power’s first season, and it was a total letdown. Rather than pull me in and get me hyped for the upcoming finale, it somehow managed to totally kill all the interest and good will it had gained back with last week’s significantly better episode. The Rings of Power is based on Tolkien’s appendices rather than an actual book, but never has it felt so much like this show is just a series of bullet points as it did in this episode.

Episode grade: C-

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