The lord of the rings the rings of power

Photo: Courtesy of Prime Video/Courtesy of Prime Video The first season of The Rings of Power has been a long journey (or maybe it’s been more of an adventure, since we’ve all been watching together), and the finale, “Alloyed,” thankfully did not leave us hanging on much. We ended things in a good (if slightly drawn-out) place. Halbrand was Sauron. The Stranger was (most probably) Gandalf. Galadriel got gaslighted hard, and Elrond knows it. And Celebrimbor made his three rings for — quote along with me now from The Fellowship of the Ring — “the Elves, immortal, wisest, and fairest of all beings,” while Halbrand/Sauron is now armed with the knowledge he needs to craft his own One Ring, and a land to do it in Mordor and Mount Doom. Not great, Bob! Those are a lot of major reveals in “Alloyed,” but honestly, the season needed them. I haven’t had a problem with the series’s pacing, for the most part, but I think The Rings of Power creators and showrunners, J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, who co-wrote this episode with Gennifer Hutchison, would have done themselves and viewers a disservice if certain mysteries were left as cliffhangers. We needed some closure here on Galadriel’s furious zeal, Elrond’s political maneuvering, Numenor’s split allegiances, and whatever the hell Halbrand was up to, and “Alloyed” deliberately checks off those boxes one by one. The story here indulges in Tolkien lore, and in delivering moments that connect these characters to the ones we know from the n...

War is on the horizon in The Rings of Power Episode 5, which provides a look at what various characters are fighting for. It’s also the first episode to have both dwarves and harfoots as the show’s disparate plots are finally coming together for the inevitable big fight for Middle-earth. The harfoot plot is pretty brief, anchored by a sweet travel sequence set to music that really feels like it gets to the adventurous spirit of Tolkien’s work. This storyline mostly continues to make clear just how powerful the Stranger is. A lot of harfoots would likely have been “left behind” if he hadn’t been there to stop the warg attack. But after his weird healing frost trick, it seems like even Nori is starting to become a little scared of her giant friend. I still don’t think the Stranger is a bad guy, but that much power is always dangerous and he needs to get his act together to ensure no one gets hurt. We also finally get a glimpse at the strange cultist-looking characters seen in a previous teaser who seem to be tracking The Stranger, but there’s no new details on who they are or what they’re after beyond the very creepy music playing when they’re on screen. The humans of the Southlands who fled to the elven tower to escape Adar and his army, meanwhile, are not doing well. About half of their group have followed Waldreg, who I can’t help but think of as a Darkfriend from The Wheel of Time, to take Adar up on his offer of surrender. Waldreg’s been a scumbag since Episode 1, when ...

I t’s hard to know exactly what to make of But the main reason why it’s difficult to form a consensus is the internet. Even more so than usual, it is being especially internetty about The Rings of Power, churning up no end of controversies about it in service to the discourse. Here’s a quick compendium of what we’ve all endured so far. The racist backlash The most pressing, and yet most depressingly inevitable, controversy has been the wave of keyboard warriors ranting about “wokeness”. Lenny Henry, for example, plays a proto-hobbit, which has caused a noisy minority of viewers to complain that Amazon has ruined their favourite thing. They were so excited about this series, and now it has all been spoiled. It’s exactly what happened when Star Wars and Amazon blocking reviews All of the above caused More racism Although the diverse casting has done a lot to slow it, some viewers have still made a point of reminding us that JRR Tolkien’s books were very much of their time. In a private letter, Tolkien described his subhuman orcs as “repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types”, while his books describe them as having “swarthy complexions”. There is also plenty of evidence that Tolkien opposed racism, but his critics point to orcs as a potential blind spot. Accents (and even more racism) Wildly unflattering … are the harfoots so stereotypical they’re as bad as a 19th-century cartoon? Photograph: Prime Studio One of the oddest choices is to make all the ...

Since the very first episode of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, fans have been asking one question: Who is Sauron? The Season 1 finale finally gave us our answer. But it was not as simple as one may have thought in the beginning. The finale had some twists and turns before truly revealing the big bad of the season. So let's break it down, talk about that supersized cold open fake out, and ponder what it all means for The Rings of Power. Is the Stranger Sauron? That's what the show wants you to believe as its cold open reintroduces the Stranger (Daniel Weyman). We find him in the lush landscape of Eryn Galen the Greenwood, also known in Tolkien's lore as the Mirkwood. It's here that he finally comes across the Dweller (Bridie Sisson) in disguise as Nori. And in the moments before the episode credits begin to roll, the trio of wizards tell the Stranger that they are there to serve him as he is "Lord Sauron." If it seems like The Rings of Power has blown its magical load incredibly soon then don't despair as the truth is not actually that simple. As the three spooky cult leaders try to remind "Sauron" who he really is through strange magic and peer pressure, we start to learn some very suspicious truths about the supposed King of the Southlands (Charlie Vickers). Who or What Is Istari? Isn't that the big question! While the finale does answer the question of Sauron's identity — we'll get to that imminently — it also seems to open up an entirely new mystery. Long ag...

Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has felt a little languid at times as it delivered dense exposition to establish its characters, the state of the world, and what’s at stake. But all of that groundlaying paid off in Episode 6, which served up an absolutely extraordinary hour of television that’s reminiscent of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the Battle of Sodden Hill in The Witcher, and the best of Game of Thrones. Adar came off as a villainous cliche in Episode 4, but he gets a lot more development in "Udûn," which reveals his history and motivations. An elf twisted by Morgoth to become one of the first Orcs, or Uruk as he prefers to be called, he still keeps to some elven traditions while feeling loyalty to his “children” and trying to do what’s best for them, which he’s decided means wiping the Southlands off the map to create Mordor. Play I’d love to know how Adar and Waldreg survived the collapse of Ostirith pretty much unscathed, but the entire episode is a back and forth as the humans and Adar’s forces take turns scoring big wins that then crumble into scathing defeats.The real action of the episode happens after Bronwyn and Arondir lead the retreat from the guard tower and start bracing for the counter offensive with plenty of ingenuity and tender moments. Arondir understandably tries to break the hilt, but at the very heart of the Lord of the Rings is the concept that powerful artifacts are not easily destroyed. Arondir’s hammer breaking before the hil...