Welcome back to the blog readers. One of the series that released in 2022 that I was paying special attention to was The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (I'll just be calling it Rings of Power from now on to simplify things). The first season premiered shortly after House of the Dragon's first season and the two were on together, and you guys know how much I've waxed that show poetic. I did not think this show's first season was as good as it could have been, although I somewhat liked what we were getting on screen. Now with the premiere of the second season, would we finally get to House of the Dragon-levels of good or are we eternally left to stare at the gaze of Sauron's Eye? We will find out with the first of the three-episode premiere, titled "Elven Kings Under the Sky," written by Gennifer Hutchison, and directed by Charlotte Brändström.
NOTE: I will be using spoilers for my thoughts, so DO NOT read ahead if you have not seen the episode.
Like I alluded to in the intro, I was not as star struck with the first season of this series the way I was with House of the Dragon's first season (and eventual second season). I found myself not being able to fully connect with every storyline and every character, but I did enjoy the interactions between Elrond and Durin, and the sixth episode was the best of the series so far. So I was hoping for a good start to a better season, and I personally do believe that we have that with a solid season premiere. The performances of Charlie Vickers and Robert Aramayo were pretty good and the story featured a lot more substance than anything in the first season.
I first want to praise the performance of Charlie Vickers as Halbrand/Sauron. He was one of the more underrated characters in the first season of this series as Halbrand where we thought he was just some side character, but when the season 1 finale happens and we find out just who this guy is (which is Sauron), then this character gets real good. Sauron is the subject of the extended intro of this episode where he is played by Vickers and Jack Lowden and both of them give exceptional performances as the character in this episode. But the real meat of Vickers's performance is when Sauron finds himself in Mordor. When Sauron is imprisoned in Mordor, he shows brilliant restraint and there is definite power in that restraint that makes him so engaging to watch. His story is far from over as he decides to rekindle an old alliance, something I will talk about later. But Vickers had objectively the best performance of this episode.
The final performance I want to talk about is that of Robert Aramayo as Elrond. Aramayo was one of the highlights of the freshman season as he took over the role of Elrond from the great Hugo Weaving with as much grace as Weaving had in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003). And in this premiere episode of this second season, Aramayo delivers the goods with the second best performance of the episode. After the events of the first season finale, Elrond is rightfully pissed at Galadriel and Aramayo is a master at fielding the betrayal Elrond feels from his old friend and the desperation he faces as he attempts to protect his fellow Elves from the dangers of the enemy. And that is a trait I can admire about a character, and even as a person: that they will go to whatever lengths they feel they need to in order to protect the ones they care about.
Now I will talk about the story of this episode, and I will start with the extended intro I was talking about earlier. For the first 25 minutes of the episode we actually follow Sauron as he is betrayed by the Orcs and Adar and brutally murdered by them. His dead corpse explodes into a light that engulfs the entire region in an icy, snowy tundra as his blood piles up and he becomes some monster-looking thing that escapes from the depths of the castle and finds its way to a woman in a carriage. This monster thing proceeds to probably absorb the woman and become human again where he stumbles upon a group of refugees that allow him to stow away on their ship. On the ship, the refugees are all attacked by a giant eel-looking thing and most of the refugees die (although the eel spares Sauron). A few refugees wash up above the water and make a makeshift raft where Sauron notices Galadriel and helps her up on the raft, mirroring the events of the second episode of the series. By giving us another human look at Sauron, we are meant to look at him as a sympathetic character who was wronged by the people he sought control over. with what we know about Sauron though, I do not think that is the reaction that is being elicited from me. We know he is a cunning and deceitful monster who should not be trusted, but it feels like they are changing the lore behind the titular "Lord of the Rings."
After the extended intro and the title card (I was surprised there was no elaborate Game of Thrones (2011-19)-level opening sequence, but maybe there was a reason for that), we pick up on Galadriel chasing after Elrond (who has the three Elven Rings of Power forged by Celebrimbor at the end of the first season) who presents the so-called "treachery" of Galadriel to the High King Gil-galad. He forces her to confess what she has learned and both men chastise her for keeping this secret. When it is brought up that the Rings can save the area where they are, Galadriel convinces Gil-galad that the Rings are free of Sauron's influence, but Elrond jumps over the waterfall to escape with them when he is commanded to hand them over. He eventually meets up with the Elf Círdan, who he convinces to destroy the Rings. By the time the other Elves deduce where he is, it is too late and Círdan has already set to sea. He becomes entranced by the Rings while attempting to destroy them and he eventually decides to bring them back to Gil-galad; the two and Galadriel put the Rings on and the area is brought back to life as a despondent Elrond watches this unfold. There is most definitely going to be a power struggle going on with the Elves, especially with what happens at the end of the episode. This goes back into my discussion earlier about why the character of Elrond is being written so strongly. The fact that he is desperate to keep any influence of the Dark Lord away from his fellow Elves is commendable in every way, and I like that they are setting Galadriel up for a bit of a redemption arc after she was deceived by Sauron.
The next story element that I want to talk about is that of the Stranger and his adventures with Nori the Harfoot. I had mentioned earlier in the post that not everything connected with me in the first season, and this sub-plot was one of those things in my opinion. We do seem like we have somewhere to go this time around as they are wandering the desert until they are come upon by Nori's best friend Poppy. Together, the three of them use a song to discover which direction they need to travel. The one interesting thing about this whole sub-plot is the fact that the Stranger is having weird dreams about what appears to be the future, because I could have swore I saw Saruman (once played by the late, great Christopher Lee) and the Eye of Sauron in one of those dream sequences. Before I move on with what I think about this sub-plot in this episode, I have to ask you guys something. Is there anybody on this planet that does not still believe that the Stranger is Gandalf? Ever since I first found out that this character had special powers, I knew that this was the direction we were headed. Now as for my thoughts on this whole sub-plot, I do think it is a lot more contained and all the scenes had purpose here. And I hope where we are headed on this journey will be promising to say the least. I do like the banter between Nori and the Stranger, but we really did not need Poppy here to be honest. And I do wonder who the masked people are that are tracking their every move.
Finally, I will be bringing my attention over to what I feel is the main plot of this episode, and that is Sauron making his way to Mordor to try to negotiate for the release of his people. Once he gets there, he is instantly captured but he takes on the persona of the King of the Southlands Halbrand that he had last season. He is forced to swear allegiance to Adar but he refuses and is thrown in a kind of jail-like prison with one terrifying ass werewolf-dog-thing. Surprisingly, he is able to tame the beast and unleash it on Adar's right-hand man Waldrag. He offers to go to Eregion after letting Adar know that Sauron has returned, and after what I believe is feigning fealty to Adar, is allowed to go to Eregion and arrives before Gil-galad's warning to Celebrimbor does. What is about to happen at Eregion is going to definitely be interesting, especially one of the tracks in the soundtrack for the second season is titled "Battle for Eregion." We shall see, I guess.
Rings of Power begins its second season with a fairly solid first episode, and shows great promise in its quest to become as good as it can be. Thank you all for reading, and I will see you for the next post.
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