Welcome back to the blog readers. As you may or may not know, I was not the biggest fan of Rings of Power's first season because I feel that it did not take as many risks as it could have at the end of the day. I also did unfairly but also kind of fairly favor House of the Dragon's (2022-) first season (2022) over this show's first season. In terms of performances, most of the performances in the first season were solid, especially from Morfydd Clark and Charlie Vickers. My points of question involved the story being presented because I felt like we were crawling through the main story and the side plots were just not interesting. Would I think this season an improvement or more of the same old from the first season? Stick around to find out.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power was created for television by J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay based on J. R. R. Tolkien's history of Middle-earth, primarily material from the appendices of the novel The Lord of the Rings. Payne and McKay served as showrunners for this second season which featured direction from Charlotte Brändström, Louise Hooper, and Sanaa Hamri. The season stars Charlie Vickers, Morfydd Clark, Robert Aramayo, Benjamin Walker, Daniel Weyman, Ciarán Hinds, Markella Kavenagh, Megan Richards, Charles Edwards, Sophia Nomvete, Owain Arthur, Peter Mullan, Lloyd Owen, Maxim Baldry, Trystan Gravelle, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Ismael Cruz Córdova, and Tyroe Muhafidin. In this season, the free peoples of Middle-earth must begin to face pure evil led by the return of Sauron as the Rings of Power are forged.
NOTE: I will be using spoilers for my thoughts, so DO NOT read ahead if you have not seen the season.
Like I said in the introduction, I found myself very disappointed with this show's first season because it could have been so much better than it was. It felt more like set up for something later, and I found myself completely bored most of the time anyway. Going into this season, I really was not sure what to expect from Payne and McKay. To be honest with you, I really didn't even know if I wanted to watch this season because of how disappointed with the first season I was. Now I will admit that I was a major fan of the trailer that came out of San Diego Comic-Con and that did get my excitement up a bit, but I was still nervous going in. John Campea shared this sentiment, and I agree with him on this wholeheartedly. I have never seen a show have a turnaround like this from one season to another. While still not anywhere near House of the Dragon levels of phenomenal, this second season was far better than the first.
Without a doubt, before I do anything in this review, I have to unequivocally praise the performance of Charles Edwards as Celebrimbor. We really did not get to see a whole lot of this character and actor in the first season, but Celebrimbor is a focal point of this season and the scenes with him are completely pivotal to the entire main plot of this season. In all honesty, Edwards is asked to bring a whole lot of raw emotion to his role as Celebrimbor and not only do I think he nails it, he delivers an Emmy-worthy performance this season, especially in the seventh episode. In fact, I will be so pissed if he does not get a nomination because I truly think this will be one of the six best supporting performances. I will go more into the specifics of how this character ties into the story of this season later, but I do want to make a comment about it very briefly. Edwards is tasked with portraying an Elf that is supposed to be losing his mind based on what he is being made to do, and he portrays this broken man to perfection. When we first see Celebrimbor, we see a man who is the greatest Elven smith but is struggling with their own sense of self. I love the moral struggle and complexity to the character that we wind up getting early this season, and Edwards does a brilliant job of portraying this character through this flaw of wanting to be known for something. As the episodes go on and we continue to see Celebrimbor lose his mind, we see an acting clinic from Edwards that solidifies itself into one of the greatest performances across film and television I have seen this year. The seventh episode, "Doomed to Die," is the culmination of multiple weeks of brilliant performances from the actor. And I am a fan of how this character meets his end in the finale, "Shadow and Flame." Edwards in this episode endears himself to the audience as a farewell to this show and this role. Like I said at the start of the paragraph, I really hope Edwards gets some Emmy love next year for his performance as the greatest Elven smith.
The next performance I want to talk about is that of Charlie Vickers as the main villain of this series, Sauron. The performance of Vickers in the first season was pretty one-dimensional and generic, in my opinion. There really was not a whole lot of substance or meat on the bones of his performance because the character of Halbrand was not really explored more until the end of the first season finale "Alloyed" revealed the character's true identity as the future Dark Lord (aka the titular Lord of the Rings as Celebrimbor brands him before his death). Sauron (and his other form Annatar) is the driving force behind all of the events of this second season, and Vickers get to run loose with his portrayal of the character in this go-around. Early on, we get some hints of this madness in brief but fluttering moments in the movements and subtlety. As the episodes go on, however, we see those moments happening more often, and Vickers is able to brilliantly guide us to where he wants us to go with this character. Eventually, we get to the point where the beast is let out of its cage and Vickers gets to go full-on insane as actual Sauron. He is a total delight to watch (although not for what he did to Celebrimbor), but that darkness he is finally, FINALLY able to tap into makes Sauron one of the most intriguing characters of not only the series but on television right now.
Like I said previously, all dark roads lead back to Sauron and his mission to seek power over flesh. The story of this season definitely ties into this and extends to all of the branches this show is trying to give us this season. The real focal point of this season is the forging of the seven Rings of Power for the Dwarves and the nine for the Men. This season, we begin to see how the Rings could corrupt whoever wears them, and we see that tragically with the King of Khazad-dûm, Durin III. It seems from what we are told that the Rings bring out someone's worst quality, and it appears that greed is that for the elder Durin. The story they tell with the two Durins is nothing short of tragic, and it makes you sympathize with the younger Durin and his plight against the forces of darkness. Durin IV has become one of my favorite characters in the show and I hope he is treated well over the rest of it. Especially knowing he has motivation after the Balrog that had been awoken killed his father.
Another focal point of the season involves Sauron and his deception of Celebrimbor. This quickly became the most interesting portion of the season and one of the most tragic because we have already seen Sauron deceive someone on this series before (more on her later). Unfortunately, Celebrimbor was blinded by the deception of Sauron and he wound up paying with his life. Like I mentioned earlier in my praise of Charles Edwards's performance as the character, Sauron wants to be able to forge more Rings of Power to achieve his goal of power over flesh and not power of the flesh. And the lengths he went to to be able to deceive Celebrimbor was downright diabolical. Sauron literally made himself an Elf named Annatar to hide his true nature, convince a female Elf that the evil she saw in the Unseen World was Celebrimbor losing his mind to make sure he was not exposed, claiming his own blood was mithril he got from Khazad-dûm for the forging of the nine Rings for Men, and literally creating an illusion for him that everything was fine while an orc army was invading Eregion. Sauron is the epitome of pure evil and there is no redeeming quality for him. I would like in future seasons to be able to get a psych dump on this guy.
Next, I would like to talk about the redemption arc that Galadriel seems to be going on in this season. I alluded to the fact that Celebrimbor was not the first person that Sauron deceived in this series; Galadriel was the first. When we met this younger version of the character in the first season, she was committed to hunting down Sauron to avenge her brother but found herself deceived by him as he disguised himself as the "King of the Southlands" Halbrand. This season, there is a greater resolve from Galadriel to make Sauron pay for what he did to her. Naturally, the other Elves do not trust her because they fear that Sauron has influenced her despite her objections and drive to kill him. And Morfydd Clark, who plays Galadriel, has a much meatier role this season than she did last season because of how much she has to bear as opposed to the first season. I think it pays off because she makes this character a whole lot more interesting this time around, especially in the final episode where she literally has to battle Sauron to attempt to keep the nine away from him.
Next, I want to talk about the storyline regarding the Harfoots, the Stranger, and the Dark Wizard. I want to talk about this next because to me, this is the most confounding storyline in the season for a few reasons. One of the reasons is because it starts well-mannered but devolved into something boring and lifeless, only for it to finally get interesting again by the finale. We see the Stranger on his quest to discover who he really is when he runs into a fellow named Tom Bombadil that sets him on his path. The character played by Rory Kinnear is such a focal point of Tolkien's legendarium that people were really excited to see him, and I feel that he was completely underutilized. Literally only featuring in like four or five scenes in 8+ hours of content is really not a good look, but we at least now officially know that the Stranger is Gandalf (something I could have told you from last season). I personally just do not like how we got here because it did not feel earned or warranted until the end. "I believe I will come to be known as Gandalf."
Next, I would like to talk about the Dark Wizard and the role he seems to be playing in the series. Like Tom Bombadil, I do not think we spent enough with the character played by the incomparable Ciarán Hinds because there is something there with this character. We got no backstory, no motivation, and no real reason for him to be here right now. He honestly feels like the Chronicom story from the sixth season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013-20). It was there to set up a main storyline for the seventh and final season but the difference there is that the Chronicoms were fleshed out and given more to do than the Dark Wizard was. He was just there to be intimidating and that's it. Hopefully we see some more of this character in future seasons and get some backstory for him. Maybe he winds up being Saruman or something. At least make there be a reason for this character to exist.
Finally on that topic, we need to talk about the Harfoots and the journey that they go on this season. In the first season of this show, Nori and Poppy are part of their own group of Harfoots that discover the Stranger and bring him to where we see him in the first episode of this season. He has initiated his quest to discover who he is with Nori and Poppy in tow, but shenanigans lead them to another group of Harfoots called the Stoors. Again, I am not really sure what they are planning with these characters, but if it gets them to what will eventually be known as the Shire where Hobbits dwell, then we better get there quickly because there is room for this story to get old and boring real fast.
I know this is a longer review than I would have liked, but we tread on with the final thing I want to talk about, and that is the storyline with the Men. There are two separate storylines that happen that sort of combine near the end of the season and get interesting. The first story I want to talk about happens on Númenor. I do think it was kind of fucked up what was done to Miriel (played by Cynthia Addai-Robinson) but I think I know why this is happening the way it is (because it is setting characters up for their final destinies). Miriel is usurped by Ar-Pharazôn who becomes the true king and he tries to get Elendil and anyone still loyal to Miriel tried for treason. He eventually uses the Elven palantir to deduce that Halbrand is Sauron and is successful in his ploy to get anyone loyal to Miriel in prison. Elendil flees and that is how that ends. This storyline started off kind of boring but got more interesting during Elendil (and eventually Miriel's) trial which started to give me Game of Thrones (2011-19) and House of the Dragon (2022-) vibes. I do think that we are going to get somewhere really interesting based on what I read about the possible future of this show.
The final thing I want to talk about is the Men-adjacent storyline that goes on with Theo, Arondir, and Isildur. Arguably the weakest aspect of this series with characters that literally mean more to me than a stick. Thankfully Arondir leaves this jumbled-up gobbledygook and goes where he really belongs (which is with the Elves) in the final two episodes of this season. But this story with the wildlings and the giant talking trees and all that literally bored me to tears every time I saw it. Fortunately there is hope that we will see these characters less in a third season because of how this storyline ends with Isildur being summoned to Númenor which will set him on his ultimate destiny (no Theory Time for this series). I fully expect more shenanigans and goings-on next season.
To conclude my thoughts, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power's second season is a vast improvement over the first with more interesting plots, characters, and an Emmy-worthy performance from Charles Edwards. There still are a few things to clean up but I have faith in Payne and McKay. Thank you all for reading, and I will see you for the next post.
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