After the cataclysmic events of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’s 6th episode, I was expected a bit more of a slower-paced episode. The showrunners and writers delivered a more introspective episode, even if it does rely on a red herring in one specific situation. The one major flaw of the episode is that this felt like more of a season finale than the penultimate episode of a season, which I don’t think was the intended effect.
Spoilers ahead, so don’t read if you haven’t watched the latest episode of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
In the Southlands, devastation has been wrought on the village of Tirharad. The eruption of Mount Doom now blankets the area in fire and ash. Galadriel, Míriel, Isildur, and Elendil find themselves having to quickly abandon the village. With the cloud of ash filling the sky, the sun is no longer a hinderance to the orcs, allowing them to freely move about. Galadriel and Theo find themselves separated from the larger group and forced to rely on each other. Elendil, Míriel, and the rest of the Númenóreans fall back to their position near the river to regroup.
The red herring I mentioned in the beginning of this review involves Isildur being trapped in a burning building after saving some of the Southlanders. The sequence is shot in such a way as to make it appear that Isildur is in mortal peril but it feels deeply disingenuous. Isildur’s fate as the man who could not destroy the One Ring is set in stone, so any potential peril to him as a person is ludicrous to entertain. The same goes for Elendil and Galadriel. We know these characters will survive (in Galadriel’s case for several more centuries), so their level of plot armor is ridiculously thick. If it had been one of the other Númenórean soldiers, I would have appreciated the scene more, since there would be a larger amount of ambiguity over the outcome.
We also discover that Míriel has lost her sight in the blast, a chilling reminder that there are some fates worse than death. Coupled with the disability of his queen regent and the apparent loss of his son, Elendil finds himself losing faith in their mission. When Galadriel returns, there is a contemptuous look on Elendil’s face, as if all of his pain is being directed at the woman who brought about these terrible events. Míriel commits to bringing back an even larger host to fight the newly-formed Mordor and the armies it will now host.
The quiet scenes between Galadriel and Theo were also quite well done. The two actors in the scenes played off each other well. For the first time since the start of the series, Galadriel has to look inward and consider the path she has chosen. When she sees Theo, full of fire and pain from the losses he’s endured, I think Galadriel sees for the first time something that she lost in her millennia-long pursuit of Sauron. For his part, Theo understands that part of their current predicament is down to his inability to let the cursed blade go.
On the other hand, we have a continuation of the Harfoot storyline. I have to say that I’ve grown frustrated by this plot line, largely because so little has been revealed over the last seven hours of television. The identity of the Stranger is still up in the air, as is the true purpose of the three women that are hunting him. The fact that the Harfoot characters are easily some of the most relatable characters in the show does help mitigate some of my issues but not enough to make me like their segments. At the end of the episode, several of the Harfoots decide to go off and warn the Stranger of the people that are after him.
Lastly, we have the events in Khazad-dûm. Durin the III refuses to give mithril to the elves, claiming the Ainur (the gods of this world) have deemed it time for the Elves to die. Of course, this proclamation does not sit well with Durin the IV and Elrond, who go behind the elder Durin’s back and uncover the motherlode of mithril. What follows is an emotional breaking point for Durin the IV, who has up to this point been pulled between his friendship with Elrond and his commitment to his father’s rule. The elder Durin is suspicious and callous, unmoved by the plight of the elves and firmly set on only protecting his own. Durin the IV sees Elrond as a brother in all but blood, something that angers his father to the point he practically disowns his only heir.
And then the stinger at the end happens, when Durin the III throws the leaf Elrond brought with him into the mithril mine. Once the leaf plummets down to the depths of the mine, it suddenly burns away as a Balrog awakens. The creature that will become known as Durin’s Bane has woken up. This one sticks in my craw quite a bit, namely because it is far too early in the show and the canon to awaken the Balrog. Durin’s Bane was awakened in the Third Age, after the first War of the Ring where Sauron was defeated. Advancing this storyline to the Second Age and before the end of the first season says to me that the writers are just dropping easter eggs to get the fans talking rather than it making sense story-wise.
With the conclusions of each of the plotlines and the switch from Southlands to Mordor in the title card, the 7th episode of The Rings of Power felt like a season finale rather than the second-to-last episode of the season. I’m not sure where the writers are going to end the show or how. The first season has been a mixed bag for me. So much of the season was spent on setting up the main plotlines and then in two episodes there are so many resolutions that it all feels too rushed. Hopefully, the finale will fill out some of the remaining details and provide a solid end to the first season.
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