In an interview with Deadline a few weeks ago, one of the showrunners for Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power teased “a battle that takes three episodes that goes from beginning to end.” As the most recent episode of Rings of Power was the sixth, that means he was counting the single catapult-launched projectile that fills the frame in the episode’s final seconds as a scene from this season-ending battle. It’s something of a microcosm for this show, which (despite a momentary uptick, or at least not a further downtick, in quality last week), consistently fails to live up to its grand ambitions in this obvious set-up episode.
This episode focuses mostly on the same three storylines as last week’s. In the dwarven realm of Khazad-dûm, Durin IV and Disa continue to struggle against a ring-corrupted Durin III’s reckless mining efforts. In Eregion, Annatar/Sauron continues to deceive Celebrimbor. And in Númenor, Elendil faces the consequences for his defiance of Pharazôn.
These are the stories in the show with the most promise (in reverse order from how I’ve listed them). But as the season approaches its climax, each story shows signs of weakness. Both Durin III’s ring-corruption and Disa’s girl-bossery go to ridiculous extents in this episode, the latter in a way that doesn’t make sense: She uses her singing powers to fend off miners Durin III has ordered to dig . . . but surely they are not the only such group in the whole kingdom?
Annatar’s deceptions of Celebrimbor continue to be interestingly insidious, but the events surrounding them make no sense: Did elves really not notice an invading force of orcs? Leading that force is corrupted-elf-turned-orc-leader Adar, who is walking into a trap so obvious (as pointed out by Galadriel, similarly deceived last season) that I can’t wait for him to succumb to it and for his pointless character to be removed from this show. Why the same orcs persuaded by Adar to destroy Sauron’s previous form (as shown in the season’s beginning) because he would not give them the peace Adar (ridiculously) claims is all they want will then follow Sauron is a bridge of Khazad-dûm Rings of Power will have to cross when it gets to it.
The Númenor storyline currently has the greatest potential. Parts of it may not make sense (we still don’t have a good idea how the government there actually functions), suffer from the show’s time compression (as I explained last week), and feature totally useless characters (such as Elendil’s invented daughter). But the story of the island nation’s corruption from a Valar-reverent utopia to a Melkor-worshiping dystopia is so compelling that it retains some power despite the show’s distortions. And this week, it threw a sea monster into the mix. I should admit that I’m a sucker for anything sea-monster-related. The moment I saw an archaic illustrated manuscript depicting a sea beast, I was totally sold on the week’s Númenor story. Leviathans aside, I think the Númenor arc could still end up a worthwhile part of the show.
That, unfortunately, leaves the other parts of Rings of Power. The Southlands/Pelargir story, centered on Isildur, has been completely forgotten about, presumably because Rings of Power ran out of things for him to do, which is fine with me but makes me question its purpose, one of many instances in Rings of Power of butter scraped over too much bread.
Out in Rhûn, my comparison of Tom Bombadil as conceived by the Rings of Power with Yoda from Star Wars has become even more on-the-nose. Tom dispenses wisdom (including a line Gandalf later says) to the Stranger, who is still trying to become the Jedi — I mean, wizard, he knows he must be, while being haunted by visions of his friends in peril. What’s next: Is the dark wizard going to be his father? Meanwhile, the harfoots are . . . there, still, for reasons that continue to elude me. They’ll obviously feature in a contrived climax at the end of this season involving the Stranger much like they did last season. And much like last season, it will fail to justify their inclusion in this show. Hobbits are simply an odd fit for the grander, more tragic, bigfolk-dominated Second Age.
Two episodes of this season of Rings of Power remain. Some season-ending drama is clearly on its way. But I doubt it will live up to what it could be — much like this show itself thus far.