Final Rings of Power Reviews I Wrote During Season 2

-Whew. That was a lot.

-Celebrimbor and I have the same teacups.

-Narvi!!!!!

-If you don’t like gross things, or orcs, or more gross things, be prepared to look away a lot.

-Glûg, though. Never thought I would feel sympathy for an Orc.

-I suppose [redacted] had “redshirt” written all over them from the moment they stepped on the scene, but their death still hurt.

-I would like, just once, to have seen the Doors of Durin in action over the last couple of episodes. I can think of several times they could have been used very effectively. Imagine Annatar walking up to the doors last episode and saying “mellon” to get in. Chilling. Lost opportunity.

-Well, that, um, answered my question about the mithril in the illusion.

-Elven armies charging! Gil-galad in armor! Yeah, I know he canonically doesn’t show up at this battle (which they lampshaded), but it was still so cool to see the last High King of the Elves, in armor, on horseback. And to see Arondir, a Silvan Elf, react to the High King’s presence. (Lengthy explanation about different kinds of Elves available on request. Tolkien did not make this simple.)

-Edwin wants to lodge a Plot Complaint about the Elves stopping the charge. Of course, it’s almost impossible to please him about the way any battle is conceived of and filmed in any show ever …

-Melian of the Maiar!

-I thought the Thing that everyone is upset and chattering about on social media wasn’t as bad as I anticipated, but it was still dumb. It seemed clear what they originally intended, but I can still think of a million ways they could have done it better.

-Galadriel, if you had just let Arondir do what he was trying to do….man, this woman needs to stop acting first and thinking afterwards.

-However, her actions did get her to a place where she could have That Conversation with Celebrimbor. One of the highlights of the episode, season, and show. I will never look at the line “May it be a light to you in dark places when all other lights go out” in the same way again. At its best, ROP has taken some things which are single sentences or phrases in Tolkien and teased out their implications and backstory in illuminating ways. That was a great example.

-Speaking of Celebrimbor, I couldn’t shake a line from the Scottish Play while thinking about him. (I’ll put it in the comments because it’s a spoiler if you haven’t read the books to know what happens to him.) Charles Edwards has been amazing this season and he does his best work in this episode. Give him an Emmy now for that final scene. (Charlie Vickers also hits it out of the park this time, so much so that I almost forgot that awful wig. He did provoke a “gaslight gatekeep girlboss” comment from us at one point.)

-Elrond and Durin’s meeting was beautiful (Durin’s line about Elrond’s hair was so funny) and their friendship in the rest of the episode, well, um, actually I’m not over that yet. The subversion of the expectations built up in us by knowing about the cinematography of the Riders of Rohan appearing was, for my money, devastating. We know that later Elrond is kind of grouchy about dwarves. After this episode you will know why.

-Lots of plotlines to resolve next episode, hope they stick the landing. (Looks like Estrid is back, which will make Elizabeth happy.)

-I am never going to shut up about the lost opportunity to see the Doors of Durin lit up and in action before Eregion was destroyed. Maybe it was a rights issue, since the lit-up doors are an image so strongly associated with the Tolkien estate in other formats? Anyway, I held out hope until the very last, but no dice.

-Not as intense as Episode 7 because they had to be too many places at once, but I basically liked the resolutions to all the different plotlines. I would have changed the order of the endings a bit, though, and put the one last which made me cry. (It did remind me of Return of the King because I kept thinking “oh, this would be a great place to stop,” and then they didn’t.)

-While we’re on things I didn’t care for, I haven’t liked the design of Nenya from the beginning, which was a problem since it played so large a role in this episode.

-I guess I feel a little better about Elrond’s waterfall jump in the first episode now that it was effectively paralleled in this by a similar jump. A little.

-We all agreed the Sauron and Galadriel fight was a Cool Fight, especially the mind games. Fighting with Morgoth’s crown, which looked odd in the trailer, actually made sense in the flow of the episode.

-I have SO MANY THOUGHTS about Adar.

-Celebrimbor’s prophecy in general was great. Could have done without one line in it which kind of created a plot hole.

-The slo-mo in the cold open: stupendous. Best shot in the episode. Durin III’s speech was perfection. Tears were shed.

-All other uses of slow-mo in the episode: silly.

-Also cried over the dialogue about pity.

-Second time that the dwarves, who have been so beautifully nuanced throughout, had that somewhat undercut by their final scene. (Happened last season too.)

-I have loved getting to know Narvi better though.

-Absolutely great Gil-galad moment near the end. I am completely won over to snarky Gil-galad.

-Big turning point in how Galadriel deals with problems. Cherish it, lady. (That’s an oblique Chesterton reference)

-Stronger King of the Dead vibes from Theo all the time.

-Also, I’m going to start placing bets on Kemen as the Mouth of Sauron, who is canonically a Black Numénoréan. (The way he kept saying “low men” was annoying but also a nice lore touch.)

-Isildur showed off both what makes him great and what makes him stupid. His is a hard arc, because he has to be a great hero who also ultimately fails – like Frodo – and I feel like we’re on that road.

-Lloyd Owen has been criminally underused this season, mostly standing around looking tortured, so I really hope the end is setting him up next season for the bigger role we know he is destined canonically to play. He’s such a great actor and perfectly cast as Elendil. I love Elendil’s chivalric devotion to Míriel.

-Anárion got name-checked!

– I had reason to think of a healing thousands of years later when Aragorn will say “Elrond is the eldest of our race and has the greater power.” The road there started here.

Next season I want: Celeborn, please. More Elendil. More Bombadil. Getting to know Anárion. Fallohides. Please conduct a certain canonical marriage I keep thinking we’re getting set up for and then not having happen. And maybe a certain character, now that he knows who he is, to get on a boat and sail around to the Grey Havens and meet Círdan.