The Rings of Power marks time in sleepy new episode (season 2, episode 4 review)

I can feel a negative review coming on; just giving you fair warning. I liked a few things in the newest episode of The Rings of Power, "Eldest," but mostly I was bored.

One of the problems with The Rings of Power is that many of the plotlines are isolated from each other, and some are more entertaining than others. My favorite characters are the dwarves. They seem more human than everyone else, including the humans. They fight, make up, snipe, joke, work and laugh. I'm invested emotionally in them. I've also been Celebrimbor's time with Sauron, who is manipulating the craftsman elf into making rings of power. Now that we know that Sauron is Sauron, we can enjoy his turn into over-the-top villainy.

None of those people appear in this episode, and those that do appear take their sweet time finding something interesting to do. Let's start with the least inspiring stories are work our way up.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power review: Season 2, Episode 4

Heaven help me, but I find it very hard to care about Isildur, Arondir, Arondir's sort-of stepson Theo, and newcomer Estrid. Part of the problem is all of these people seem to have the same dour, serious personality. Do they have interests? Do they find anything funny? What's their favorite band? I dunno, I feel like they need something to distinguish them from each other, cause I've had just about all I can take of the lot of them staring seriously into the middle distance talking about duty and destiny.

Theo is missing after a run-in with some brigands in the last episode, so Isildur and Arondir go out looking for him. They bring along Astrid, who is revealed to be...I think a former follower of Adar, although it's hard to know if that was by choice. The splotchy tattoo on the back of her neck seems to be enough proof for her companions that she has wickedness on her mind, so she is manacled and dragged through the forest. Before that, she and Isildur were making moon eyes at each other. Now they're fighting. I feel like the show is asking me to get invested in their relationship without bothering to turn either of them into interesting characters first.

Anyway, they eventually find Theo, who has been taken prisoner by an angry Entwife mad that someone has been cutting down the trees in the forest. This is roughly in line with the environmental themes of the Ent stories in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, but it's not presented with any depth. The Entwife and her Ent husband are trotted out to get mad about deforestation, and the show moves on secure in the knowledge that the superfans in the audience got to see an Ent.

Theo also moves on, neglecting to join Arondir in whatever he has planned next for...some reason I feel like I should know but don't. The one part of this story I did really like was when Arondir and Isildur are sucked into a bog by a giant slug monster and Astrid helps get them out. The action is fun and the fear of drowning in a magic swamp is strong enough to cut through the tedium.

We also check in with Galadriel, Elrond and their Elven messenger party. The Elves are about as stiff and dull as the humans, if better dressed. They're trying to get to Eregion to warn Celebrimbor about Sauron, but can't because the bridge is out. They cut through an evil forest and fight some evil barrow wights; an elven red shirt dies in the process. Tears are shed...by someone, surely. They encounter a bunch of orcs and Galadriel gives her ring of power to Elrond so she can stay behind to fight them off, giving her companions time to escape. Then Adar, who's apparently marching these orcs to Eregion to root out Sauron, comes forward to say hi.

I'm summarizing these events with as much passion as watching them inspired in my heart, which is very little. The barrow wights look cool, but there has to be more reason for an action scene than that. The bridge being out felt like a way to prolong the journey, and as for Galadriel and Adar...I guess we'll tune in next week.

Harfoots, wizards and Tom Bombadil

My favorite parts of the episode went down in the eastern desert of Rhûn, where the Stranger, Nori and Poppy were separated at the end of the last episode. Nori and Poppy are still together, and run into a group of desert-dwelling halflings called Stoors. Like the dwarves, the halflings on this show actually have personalities and might even know how to have fun. I liked watching Nori and Poppy talk their way into visiting the Stoor village, I liked the Stoor elder laying down the law, and I liked Poppy and a wide-eyed Stoor named Nobody flirting with each other, only for Nori to interrupt and break the spell.

The best moment of the episode comes when the Stoor elder fills in some bits of halfling lore for Nori. It seems like all halflings may have lived this area at one point, but one left to go find a more hospitable land. Generations later, that sect of halflings are still wandering. Nori puts it together, and actually gets me to well up with emotion when she says, "We have no home." This storyline effectively integrates lore, character, plot and emotion. More of this kind of thing, please. Also, the Dark Wizard's weird masked minions better stay away from the Stoors. Bite their ankles, halflings.

Yes, there's a dude round these parts known as the Dark Wizard, apparently the same guy who's been trying to capture the Stranger since the first season. As someone who's read a lot of J.R.R. Tolkien's work, this is nonsense. The lore around the wizards is fairly well established and this is not it, even if I give the producers as much leeway as possible. But as someone who wants to enjoy this TV show, I kind of like the idea of the bearded magic man and his tiny companions battling the wicked warlock of the east. Why not?

That said, the show is making it hard for me to forget how much it flies in the face of what Tolkien wrote by introducing Tom Bombadil, who takes in the Stranger to maybe instruct him in the ways of magic. Tom is a minor character from The Fellowship of the Ring who is usually left out of adaptations on account of him not impacting the plot in any way, so even having him do something as small as point the Stranger in the right direction cuts against his literary legacy.

That's the problem I expect book fans will have with Tom; the Tom we know from The Lord of the Rings would never take this much interest in the wider world. Meanwhile, folks who don't know of him might wonder why a complete rando is suddenly at the center of this important storylilne. I don't know if there's an upside to including him. And if the show must go there, I'm going to need a lot more gratuitous singing. Give me the full, baffling Tom Bombadil experience or give me nothing.

This was a dull one, ladies and gentlemen. I think the show should have just been about the dwarves and the harfoots and it should have been called Wee The People. Because they're wee little folk? You get it.

Episode Grade: C-

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