THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER “Where Is He?”

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We open with Arondir running through the woods and killing orcs along the way. It occurs to us that he is easily one of the best things about the show, partially because of Ismael Cruz Cordova’s performance and partially because he’s an open-ended character, which means we’re not waiting for him to become more recognizable, as we are with characters like Galadriel and Elendil, among others. It also occurs to us that Theo, Isildur, and the Southlanders in Pelargir have completely exited the story. We know that we’re not done with Isildur, which makes their absence (especially after a fairly elaborate setup for a potential love interest) a fairly glaring pacing problem this season. After killing a trio of orcs, Arondir finds a crude drawing of the Eregion skyline on one of them.

In Eregion, Celebrimbor is losing it, monologuing at pieces of metal for taunting him and barking orders at the other jewel smiths. When Mirdania offers that they’ve been working very hard, he momentarily forgets her name, which startles her. Annatar shows up in his spiffy new “I’m clearly the villain” outfit and tells the staff to take five. He notes that it must be hard for Celebrimbor to pull himself away from his jewel-smithing to deal with the concerns of being the Lord of Eregion and rather easily gets him to hand over control of the city while he works on the rings. “Until the nine are complete,” a deteriorating Celebrimbor tells him, “Nothing else matters.” Outside, Annatar informs Celebrimbor’s staff and guards that they’re to come to him with all matters while their Lord works. Mirdania informs him that inward bound traffic to the city stopped yesterday and that the body of one of their soldiers was left outside their gate with a message carved into his chest: “Where is he?” Annatar orders them to bury him immediately and tells Mirdania that the jewel-smiths are all being dismissed. “Pray that he finishes this work before it finishes him.” The problem with this storyline is that we have to accept that Mirdania and the city guardsman are pure idiots. These are clearcut indications that an invasion is imminent.

In Adar’s camp, it’s dinnertime. His table is loaded with surprisingly palatable food. We would have thought the orc diet was a lot more disgusting, but the show is doing a lot to make the argument that they are more of an independent-minded and free-thinking race than they appear in the Third Age. In fact, this whole storyline seems to be setting up Sauron’s eventual control of the entire orc race with the argument that the orcs didn’t entirely have a choice in the matter of their fealty to him. Adar rightly notes that Galadriel has become obsessed with Sauron and that once he gets inside your head, it’s only a matter of time before he destroys you. She spits out that he knows nothing of her mind (she’s wrong about that) and that she managed to resist Sauron while he bent the knee. Then he pulls out the crown of Morgoth, which she is shocked and discomfited to see, and suggests that the combination of the crown and the elven rings could be enough to destroy Sauron for good. To which we say… sure? Okay? If you say so. Granted, we already know this plan isn’t going to work. He asks her point blank if Halbrand is Sauron and she confirms it. He tells her that she needs to put aside her pride and work with him in order to save Eregion. Eventually, she realizes that Adar’s army is exactly what Sauron wants. We have less of a problem with this version of Galadriel than a lot of Tolkien purists (although the fate of her husband and the existence of her daughter is annoyingly unmentioned). We’re okay seeing a Galadriel dark enough and young enough to make mistakes. Tolkien wrote her that way, although at an age much younger than this. But we can’t say we enjoy seeing her manipulated by yet another smooth talking guy.

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In Númenor, Elendil is being faced with the crime of high treason and Ar-Pharazon offers him an escape from a death sentence if he renounces his crimes and pledges his fealty to the king. Elendil assents to the first part and refuses the latter. After Elendil is dragged out in chains Kemen asks his father what he’s going to do and Pharazon spits out “You’ve done quite enough, boy,” which indicates that this isn’t a sequence of events he’s eager to face. It’s clear he doesn’t want to make a martyr out of him, so they decide to submit him to the will of the Valar. It’s kind of a goofy swerve to suddenly announce that you’re going to use a sea worm to dispense justice, but we presume Pharazon and his minister believe that if Elendil is killed by the Valar’s lack of interest, it will destroy the faith of the remaining believers. Earien goes to visit her father in the dungeon and suddenly she’s tearful and begging him to say the right thing. This is a massive shift from the sneering daughter who watched him get stripped of his rank and it occurs to us that this character has absolutely no consistent through-line or motivations. She brings Míriel with her to convince Elendil to support Pharazon, but not even she can convince him. Lloyd Owens and Cynthia Addai-Robinson are wonderful together, which tends to throw in relief just how awful characters like Earien and Kemen are.

In Rhûn, the Stranger is getting his Jedi training from Yoda Bombadil when he gets visions of Nori in danger. They banter a bit about the Stranger’s purpose, with one aside that points pretty firmly to his being Gandalf. Stranger asks Tom about how he can become master of the Secret Fire, which is the flame of creation powered by Iluvatar, aka, God. Tom pointedly scoffs at the idea of him mastering such a thing. This is notable because one of the most quoted and memorable lines in all of Tolkien comes when Gandalf faces off against the Balrog and declares himself “a servant of the Secret Fire,” which indicates that the Stranger has yet to learn where he ranks in all of this. Tom tells him that he failed every trial put before him and if he fails the next one, there won’t be any other. This is questionable, since the guy literally fell out of the sky as a flaming meteor, which tends to suggest that he’s at least a little important. Anyway, he takes him to… a field of staffs? Where he has to pick out his own? He tells the would-be wizard that he has to stop thinking about his friends and disappears before explaining further, which is the most accurate-to-character thing he does all episode. We enjoyed Rory Kinnear’s take on this character in his first appearance, but we really don’t like seeing him turned into some sort of active player and Jedi master. If you’re going to do Tom Bombadil in your Tolkien adaptation/extrapolation, there’s really only one rule you need to stick to: leave him undefined and uninvolved. He may comment on situations and pull a hapless traveler out of a sticky situation, but he is defined by his creator as someone who sits outside virtually all of the concerns of the universe.

In the Stoor village, Nori, who is suddenly sporting makeup, urges Gundabale to rally her people to leave before the Gaudrim attack, but the Stoor leader explains the long history her clan has with this village and how its people expect to live their entire lives in one place, eventually resting there forever. She is, in fact, describing life in the Shire. Tanya Moodie is wonderful in this scene, the single tear rolling down her cheek as she describes her life. Meanwhile, Poppy and Merrimac share their first kiss while milking a snake for venom. Nori suggest that she should turn herself into the Gaudrim mercenaries but Poppy thinks they should stay and fight.

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We know that the story of the Stranger and the halflings is likely to be the one most criticized by the show’s watchers and by Tolkien purists specifically. Tolkien never wrote about the halflings during the Second Age and only mentioned wizards in passing, so this entire storyline is a near-total invention of the show, with little bits and hints to suggest that it’s not going to be an entire waste of time. We’re going to put our cards on the table and make a prediction about where this is going. Despite – or perhaps more accurately, because – the hints about him being Gandalf are landing like anvils all season, we now strongly suspect that it’s not going to be him. What we think the whole Rhûn storyline is about is how the Blue Wizards (one of whom the show is portraying as an evil Saruman analogue in opposition to its Gandalf analogue) fought over the encroachment of Sauron into the East of Middle Earth. Whatever happens between these two wizards is a prologue to what will happen to the two wizards to follow them.

As for Nori, it seems clear to us that she is meant to be the Moses of her people. It would be bad if she united the Harfoots, Fallohides and Stoors at this time, because that is very clearly NOT textually supported, but we think her role is to set in motion the events that will eventually, millennia later, cause the halflings to unite and settle in the Shire, eventually producing the Baggins family line (and also, not incidentally, Smeagol, aka Gollum), which will go on to save all of Middle Earth. Tolkien was big on little pebbles causing big avalanches – it’s the entire point of Frodo, after all – and having Nori somehow initiate contact with the other clans in order to produce a world-altering family line isn’t a waste of time, so long as you see this entire series as a direct prologue to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. In other words, the Rhûn storyline isn’t about Gandalf and the Hobbits, it’s about setting up the conditions that will allow them both to rise in the Third Age, just as the Adar storyline is meant to explain how Sauron gained control of the Orcs; just as last season’s storyline was about the creation of Mordor.

In Númenor, Míriel takes Elendil’s place in the trial and faces the sea worm (in one of the series’ most spectacular effects shots), who declares her innocent. Pharazon is livid as Elendil declares her Tar-Miriel, essentially crowning her queen. We see him consulting the Palantir, which shows him images of Halbrand. It’s never a good idea when the Palantir is used by anyone who isn’t an elf, so we shouldn’t expect Miriel’s ascension to be a foregone conclusion (especially if you know your Tolkien).

In Khazad-dûm, the gold is piling up around Durin’s throne as tributes from the other Dwarf lords come in and the mining continues at a rapid pace. Prince Durin is summoned to the throne room because Annatar is there, although it’s clear that the Lord of Gifts is there to see the king. He informs the Durins that Eregion is under threat of attack (something that Celebrimbor is completely ignorant of) and that they’re in dire need of more Mithril. The king turns him down, to his son’s relief. But instead of seeing Annatar for the manipulative danger that he is, King Durin instead sees him as another opportunity to shake someone down for payment. Annatar quietly accepts his refusal and smirks as he leaves, possibly because he saw a brief vision of the Balrog in the flames of a nearby torch and knows that Khazad-dûm is… well, doomed. Prince Durin begs his father to take off the ring and gets the back of the king’s hand in response. Disa is furious and begins talking of treason, although we’re not sure what she or her husband can do about the situation. Later, she… summons bats?

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In Eregion, the elves being panicking as the armies are sighted across the river. As Annatar waits for the siege to begin, he cuts open his palm with a knife. Celebrimbor becomes suspicious about the noises outside his forge and Annatar tries to stop him from investigating. It’s nice to see Celebrimbor show a little spine, although seeing him shove Annatar violently away from him makes us wonder what he thinks Annatar actually is. Our assumption/understanding was the Elves of Eregion understood Annatar to be the Lord of Gifts; which implies he’s some sort of higher being. But Celebrimbor tends to snap at him like a peer. As Celebrimbor goes outside to investigate, Annatar demonstrates his most powerful magic yet by showing him a fully immersive illusion of the city at peace. He gives Celebrimbor a container full of mithril pellets, the provenance of which is a complete mystery, since we know the dwarves didn’t give him any. Appealing to his vanity, he promises that Celebrimbor’s rings of power will outstrip even the fabled Silmarils in terms of power and beauty. “Best Fëanor,” he urges him. Satisfied and placated, Celebrimbor returns to his forge and Annatar lets the illusion drop. The transition to reality was well done. It could have read as cheesy or overly fiddled-with in the digital work (as these things tend to be). It’s the most overt use of magic we’ve seen in the series yet, and the total immersion of Annatar’s illusion, not to mention whatever he’s doing to keep everyone away from Celebrimbor, is chillingly powerful.

Across the river, the trebuchets begin to launch their fireballs at the city. Eregion is about to fall and it looks like Sauron is going to get everything he wants.

NEXT: “Doomed to Die“

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