THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER “Doomed To Die”

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Celebrimbor sips his morning elf tea and looks out over the realm of Eregion (actually the capital city of Ost-in-Edhil, but we’re pretty sure the show doesn’t have the rights to the name, which is why you never hear anyone say it), peaceful under a rising sun. It’s a lie, of course; as is everything he sees and hears for most of this episode. We see a montage of him casting the nine rings, using the mysterious stash of mithril Annatar gave him last episode. Once he has completed forging them, he notices that a gem is missing from Feanor’s hammer and catches a glimpse of his true state in a fleeting reflection. Annatar comes in and immediately smooths the illusion over, not just with magic, but with the charming flattery of an abuser. He tells the jewel smith that he will be sad when the project is complete and they will no longer be spending time together. “A pity, is it not?” Once outside, he drops the illusion to reveal that the city is being bombarded. He tells a frantic Mirdania and the city guard that Celebrimbor has forbidden a counter attack because he believes that the river will protect them from an invasion. When they protest, he informs them that he is taking charge of the city’s defenses. He tells Mirdania that the Lord of Eregion has lost his mind; a classic abuser technique of separating his victim from any allies and telling them that he’s no longer trustworthy. “We are alone,” he tells her. “Not alone,” the foolish (and doomed) elf girl responds. Inside, Celebrimbor notices the glitch in Annatar’s illusion matrix and marks a candle to confirm his suspicions

Adar halts his bombardment of the city and has his soldiers point their siege engines at the mountains lining the river. They fire projectiles at them until the mountains start crumbling. It’s an impressive sequence, hearkening back to the eruption of Mount Doom last season, but we’re not sure we entirely buy that you can break mountains by throwing rocks at them. Nevertheless, the river is dammed and a muddy battlefield opens up in front of the city.

In Khazad-dûm, King Durin tells Narvi to continue digging, even though his son and daughter-in-law are mounting a two-dwarf protest to prevent that from happening. “Every hour that we delay costs us unthinkable wealth” the obsessed king tells his master craftsman. This storyline just feels goofy to us. Prince Durin and Disa are in no position to keep the digging from happening and it sometimes feels like there’s a little bit too much family conflict playing out in some of these stories. Númenor, Khazad-dûm and even the orc army are all going through it because of daddy issues, which is a limiting way of looking at big, earth-shaking events. Narvi and his men throw down their axes and announce their support for the prince because his father has lost his mind. Disa says they have to get the ring off of him. Narvi responds that theirs is not the only kingdom in peril and that Prince Durin has a visitor. “There’s an elf outside. Wants your ear.” We didn’t even realize we were missing Durin and Elrond together, but they have a sweet happy friendship and rapport and it made for a nice moment in all the darkness of this episode. Durin asks him to make it quick because he’s about to overthrow his own father. Elrond pleas with his friend for aid on behalf of the besieged Eregion.

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Celebrimbor confronts Annatar about the glitches in his matrix. “You sought peace,” he replies chillingly. “I gave it to you.” One of the best things about the writing this season is how they’ve cast Sauron as a classic abuser, gaslighting and confusing his victim at all times. “You welcomed my instruction. You practically begged for it,” he continues. Celebrimbor still has some spine, however. “No emissary of the Valar would do this. Who are you? Truly?” Sauron lets the veil slip and angrily demands the nine rings. Celebrimbor throws Fëanor’s hammer at him, breaking the window and subsequently, the illusion. Bloodied and filthy, he weeps for his devastated city. He knocks over the container of mithril and thick black liquid oozes out. “I have learned so much from you,” Annatar says as he reveals the knife wound on his hand that supplied the blood that went into the nine rings. “You are He,” a now terrified Celebrimbor questions. “Are you not?” “I have many names,” Sauron replies, although that doesn’t exactly narrow it down, since everyone and everything in this world has multiple names. Celebrimbor escapes his studio and finds Mirdania on the city wall. He tries to tell her everything, but he sounds insane to her. Annatar shows up to do a little more gaslighting and with a flick of his wrist, flips Mirdania over the wall to her death, making it look like Celebrimbor’s fault. He tells Celebrimbor that if he finishes the nine, he will spare the city. When Celebrimbor asks what he plans on doing with the rings, Sauron answers “Make a perfect and everlasting peace.”

Elrond and Gil-galad arrive with an army of elves and storm the battlefield. Adar unveils Galadriel in her cage and Elrond halts the company and agrees to parley. In his tent, Adar asks Elrond to show him the ring. Elrond claims it would be a foolish act for him to bring it on the battlefield and Adar notes that he’s more suited for wielding a scroll than a sword. “You’ve never seen me wield either,” Elrond replies. Adar tries to argue that Sauron is their common enemy and that he should hand over the ring to allow Galadriel to live. Elrond points out the absurdity of asking for his help invading the Elven realm of Eregion and Adar counters that “Eregion has fallen into shadow,” echoing a Galadriel line from The Fellowship of the Ring. Elrond, wise herald that he is, asks Adar in front of his soldiers if he’s willing to spend all of their lives. Adar gives him one more chance to save Galadriel’s life and, after quite overtly removing something from his brooch in front of the entire tent of orcs, turns down the offer and asks for the opportunity to say goodbye to her before they kill her. Then, that thing happened. And we groaned. Just when the show felt like it was righting itself and confidently moving forward, they go and have Elrond and Galadriel kiss. Yes, it almost certainly isn’t meant to be seen as a romantic kiss, but one undertaken to hide the passing of the lock pick to her. Even so, it struck us as the show giving into its worst impulses. “Everyone knows Elrond and Galadriel. Let’s make them kiss!” And yes, they know full well that she is his mother-in-law. They’re counting on the kind of outrage that moment will inspire among the purists. We’re just going to pretend it never happened.

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Outside the tent (but in front of a whole bunch of orcs), Elrond informs his lieutenant that the dwarves are set join the battle and that he is to go meet them and guide their route. In Khazad-dûm, Prince Durin is rallying a massive crowd of dwarves by revealing everything that’s been happening: that Sauron is in Eregion making the rings that will enslave all of Middle Earth. Owain Arthur does a great job delivering the speech, but we have no idea why they’re all following the Prince instead of the King.

On the battlefield, we get to see Elrond be a badass, which is never a waste of time. Adar’s lieutenant Glug (the orc with the wife and kid who’s been having feelings all season) pleads with him to end the battle because Elrond’s forces are overwhelming them. He won’t concede, prompting Glug to ask him, in Black Speech no less, if he loves him. We’ve been intrigued by the show’s idea that the orcs aren’t a monolith, and we never had a problem with them depicting orcwives and kids because there has to be some form of child rearing in order for orcs to reach adulthood. The overall idea of the orcs being potentially redeemable is something Tolkien wrestled with in his letters many times. But “Daddy you said you loved us” is where we draw the line, we’re afraid. It’s just too goofy. Adar responds that he loves them too much to let them become Sauron’s slaves, which would naturally prompt the question of why he walked them all right up to Sauron’s front door, we suppose. It seems like the show is saying that anyone who claims Sauron as their enemy is already capable of enormous self-delusion.

Galadriel escapes her chains and kills her captors before Adar discovers it. She tries to remain incognito as she makes her way out of the camp and we found ourselves asking the same question we always ponder when Sam and Frodo are making their way through Mordor in orc armor: Why not rub mud all over your face? There’s certainly no shortage of it in Middle Earth. While undercover (under a blanket more like it) Galadriel is shocked not only to see that the orcs have burial rites, but that Adar weeps for his dead children. She wisely doesn’t stay too long to take in the spectacle, but several orcs spot her leaving. Just as they’re about to overtake her, Arondir’s arrows fly out and we almost cheered when we saw him. He and Galadriel have a wonderful scene together, where he makes it clear he places no value on his own life anymore and she urges him to stay in the light and remain a hero. They have a great rapport, as two very different elves who don’t know each other, but nonetheless have deep and tremendous respect for each other. It’s also just nice to see a guy on this show not yelling at her or trying to seduce her. As we noted last season, Galadriel is like the Beyonce of elves. She should be treated like a superstar by all of them, which is why some of the stuff earlier in the season with grumpy Gil-galad and pissy Elrond just didn’t scan for us.

In Khazad-dûm, the troops are rallied and Prince Durin is armored up and ready to head out when a bloodied Narvi shows up and tells him that his father has gone even more insane and is apparently super-powered now, because he took out a whole company of dwarves in his obsession to dig even further. This is also starting to sound a little goofy, as if one dwarf obsessively digging with a pickaxe is going to set the Balrog loose. Narvi tells him that he has to recall the entire standing army to take care of this business with his father, which also doesn’t make much sense to us. Why not send the troops to Eregion but keep one or two companies back to deal with a mad king?

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In Celebrimbor’s forge, he is chained to his work desk in very fancy Elven handcuffs while he puts the finishing touches on the nine rings. Sauron tells him not to be afraid and that when this is all over, their suffering will have been worth it. A ravaged Celebrimbor scoffs at the suggestion that Sauron suffered and in classic abuser mode, he relays a sad tale of abuse by his own “daddy” Morgoth and uses to excuse the abuse he inflicts on others. He goes even further and tells Celebrimbor that he chose the abuse himself. “You forced me to torment you to bring them into being, I am but a victim of your obstinance.” “You truly are the Great Deceiver,” a nothing-left-to-lose Celebrimbor taunts. “You can deceive even yourself.” Daddy issues and delusions all the way down.

Celebrimbor tries to destroy the rings with fire, but that was never going to work, what with them being magic elven rings tainted with the black blood of an evil immortal spirit and all. While we find it a little bit hard to believe that the greatest elven craftsman of all time can’t open a pair of handcuffs with an entire workshop of tools at his disposal, the scene of him cutting off his thumb was incredibly powerful. You have to figure that he knew his life was over at that point, which gave him the strength to destroy the one thing that means the most to him as an artisan and craftsman, his hands. He escapes the forge and the dumbass city guardsman attempt to arrest him when an absolutely furious – and rightly so – Galadriel shows up. Finally we see a bunch of elves treat her like the high-ranking bitch she is and they all immediately back down. She is shocked at the state of her friend and even more shocked to hear that he’s carrying nine more rings for men. Do the elves outside Eregion even know about the Dwarven rings? He gives her the rings and tells her to get them out of the city while he distracts Sauron. His city guardsman promise to protect him, which reminds us of another recurring problem with the storytelling on this show. It always hinges on largely nameless social groups changing their minds and switching allegiances constantly. We see this playing out in Eregion, Khazad-dûm, Númenor, and even among the halfling clans. It tends to make all of the stakes feel considerably lower and reduce everyone to players on a board. Speaking of which, Sauron kills them all with a flick of his wrists. Poor battered, bloodied Celebrimbor is left alone with his abuser once again.

On the battlefield, everyone stopped to watch one brave elf fire the most important arrow. Again, just a little goofy in its staging. Still, most of the battle scenes were really great and things got a lot more fun when Arondir and the Damrod the hill troll showed up. Glug is mad at daddy for letting an orc-killing mad troll on the loose and we’re starting to think Sauron is going to gain their loyalty not through magic and deception, but because the orcs all rebelled against their father figure. Like he did with Galadriel and Celebrimbor, he’s going to make them want to serve his needs. Gil-galad, Arondir, and Celebrimbor execute a triple play to take out Damrod in a fairly cool sequence but the walls of the city are breached. As the elves threaten to become overwhelmed, the sun rises and Elrond calls out that the dwarves are coming. We have to say, we absolutely loved that they upended this Tolkienian trope, one that the Jackson films repeatedly used. No army crested the hill with the sunrise to save them. No eucatastrophe occurred to change the tide. Arondir faces Adar on the battlefield and it doesn’t go well for him at all. We really hope they don’t kill the best character on the show, but we have to admit, it occurred to us how few deaths there have been so far.

The Dwarves never come, Eregion falls, and Adar takes the ring from Elrond, who apparently was foolish enough to take it into battle. For anyone who isn’t Sauron, things went very badly this episode and they’re about to get much worse.

NEXT: “Shadow and Flame“

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