‘The Rings of Power’ Premiere Recap: All Is Not Calm in Middle-Earth
Here are seven takeaways from the first two episodes (spoilers) -- (edited)
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‘The Rings of Power’ Premiere Recap: All Is Not Calm in Middle-Earth
Amazon’s ambitious “Lord of the Rings” prequel series has finally arrived. Here are seven takeaways from the first two episodes.
Season 1, Episodes 1-2: ‘A Shadow of the Past’ and ‘Adrift’
Five years ago, Amazon bought the television rights to J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings,” committing to spend around a billion dollars — at least — to make a five-season prestige drama series, set thousands of years before the events in Tolkien’s novels. Since then, Tolkien fans have obsessed over every tease of the show’s possible story lines and characters. Meanwhile, industry-watchers have questioned whether Amazon’s Prime Video service can deliver a “Game of Thrones”-level action-fantasy event.
Now that the first two episodes of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” are finally available to Prime Video subscribers, we have some answers to long-lingering questions. Do they live up to director Peter Jackson’s Oscar-winning “Lord of the Rings” movies? Are they too high-fantasy for casual TV viewers? Too dumbed-down for Tolkien devotees?
The quick take? This series, so far, is solidly entertaining, with a big-budget luster, some well-drawn characters, and an intricately woven narrative that shows plenty of promise. “The Rings of Power” has a grand scope, taking place in familiar and unfamiliar lands within Middle-earth and beyond, with plotlines involving elves, dwarves, humans and a Hobbit-adjacent group called the Harfoots.
The longer take? Well, we’ll be getting into that here each week, starting with the exposition-heavy first chapter and the more action-driven second one. This feature is intended as a handy companion to some of the show’s most memorable moments and key plot points, summarizing and analyzing what stands out over the course of Season 1’s eight episodes.
Here are seven takeaways from the first two episodes of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.”
No Tolkien knowledge? No problem.
Part of what made the “Lord of the Rings” movie trilogy a success was that Jackson and his team simplified Tolkien’s saga, beginning with a prologue that explained what viewers needed to know. Long ago there was a grand battle between the evil Lord Sauron’s armies and a coalition of heroic humans and elves, and in the aftermath an all-powerful ring fell into the wrong hands, so now it must be taken to a volcano and destroyed. And we’re off!
“The Rings of Power” similarly sets the stage cleanly and clearly. Once again we’re in the distant past, where the elves keeping Middle-earth safe have determined that Sauron (still our Big Bad) and his orc soldiers are no longer a pressing threat. It feels like it is time to move on … until a string of strange occurrences in the first episode leaves some wondering if there’s still evil-fighting to be done.
There may be some benefit to remaining Tolkien-neutral when it comes to “The Rings of Power.” Though the series draws on the author’s detailed notes about his fantasy realm, the showrunners, J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, are not allowed to adapt any narrative material or characters that appeared in posthumous Tolkien works like “The Silmarillion.” Instead the basic premise comes from the histories in the appendices of “The Lord of the Rings,” embellished with new characters.
It’s diverse but not entirely colorblind.
One thing Tolkien fans noticed during the “Rings of Power” casting announcements was that — in keeping with the larger effort in modern media to diversify casting — there are many more Black and brown faces in this show than in Jackson’s movies. Most of the time, the difference in skin tones seen within races like dwarves and Harfoots isn’t presented as a big deal.
But it does matter that one of the major characters, Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova), is a darker-skinned Silvan elf. This elven subset lives and toils close to the humans in Middle-earth rather than residing either in the glittering faraway kingdom of Eldamar or in the Middle-earth enclave of Lindon — where the fair-skinned, light-haired, immortal elves make all the decisions. It also matters that Arondir has a romantic connection with Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi), a human healer who works near a village of Sauron sympathizers in the Southlands.
Is it like ‘Game of Thrones’?
Yes, in one key way.
It’s hard to avoid comparing the TV “Lord of the Rings” with the much-hyped “House of the Dragon,” given that both are pricey prequels, derived from beloved works of fantasy fiction, arriving at the same time. (Also: Part of the back story of “The Rings of Power” is Jeff Bezos’ decree that he wanted Amazon to have its own “Game of Thrones.”) But for the most part, “House of the Dragon” is its own kind of show, irrelevant to any discussion of “The Rings of Power.”
That said, anyone who loved “Thrones” will find it hard not to notice how “The Rings of Power” keeps viewers oriented by zooming across a cool-looking computer-animated map, much like in the HBO hit’s opening credits. And unlike “House of the Dragon” — which so far has kept most of its action confined to one or two locations — “The Rings of Power” spreads its story around. In these first two episodes we spend time with the ancient elves of Valinor and also roam across the Sundering Seas to Middle-earth, where we follow humans in the Southlands, the nomadic Harfoots in their secret camps, the Silvan elves in their fortresses and the dwarves in the underground city of Khazad-dum.
But it’s also nothing like ‘Game of Thrones.’
Tired of all the stomach-turning gore, gratuitous nudity, amoral characters and generally pessimistic tone in Westeros? “The Rings of Power,” while in no way a kiddie show, is much more family-friendly than “House of the Dragon.” As in the Jackson films, the series’s look is bright, colorful and filled with moments of fantastical awe, all set to a rousing blockbuster-like score that combines elements of Howard Shore’s movie themes with new pieces composed by Bear McCreary.
The characters, too, are generally more well-meaning and heroic, and have more upbeat and winning personalities. This doesn’t mean they are saps, or that they always make good choices. Part of the challenge for Payne and McKay — as it was for Tolkien and Jackson — is to tell a story with clearly defined heroes and villains that leaves room for those heroes to be complicated.
A time of peace, uneasily kept.
As I mentioned, when the series begins, the elven armies have had so little to do for so long that many of the rank-and-file are beginning to doubt that Sauron or the orcs are a real threat. The humans in Middle-earth are weary of the elves patrolling their lands and acting haughtily. And back in Lindon, the elven ruling class is giving the heroes of the battles against Sauron’s slain master, Morgoth, the chance to sail into the great light back to their homeland, as a reward for valiant service.
The warrior Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) isn’t sure her job is done though, because she keeps seeing Sauron’s mark everywhere — something she is sensitive to, because her dead brother had the evil one’s logo branded onto his corpse. In a climactic moment at the end of the first episode, Galadriel chooses not to join her comrades, and instead jumps off their boat before the light transports them.
Meanwhile, Galadriel’s half-elf friend Elrond (Robert Aramayo) gets sent on an errand related to a larger elven plan that remains unrevealed so far, but certainly seems like it could be the forging of the powerful rings that will eventually connect this series to Tolkien’s books. Elrond travels to Khazad-dum to talk to his old dwarf buddy, Durin (Owain Arthur), where he discovers that the dwarves are also sick of the elves’ demands. Durin is especially huffy, because Elrond didn’t come to his wedding; he’s only here when the elves need another favor.
In short: Everything seems fine in Middle-earth, but there are underlying tensions among all these races who once stood against Morgoth and Sauron, and there are would-be heroes like Galadriel and Elrond who want to take proactive steps to prevent future trouble — even if those steps cause problems.
There are giants in the sky.
The other big moment at the end of the first episode takes place outside the Harfoot settlement, where a blazing fireball in the sky crash-lands, leaving a huge crater, within which rests the body of a large humanoid (Daniel Weyman). An adventurous Harfoot named Nori (Markella Kavenagh) finds the as-yet-unnamed star-man, who speaks no recognizable language, and who over the course of the second episode demonstrates strange magical powers. At one point this “Stranger” snaps a twig, and back in the Harfoot village Nori’s father snaps an ankle. Later, the Stranger upends a Harfoot lantern and has a mumbling conversation with the fireflies inside.
It is too early to speculate on who or what the Stranger actually is (though it is worth noting that there is a distinct lack of wizards in this show so far). At the moment, his arrival matters in that it gives more screen time to Nori, who is the breakout character in these first two episodes. While the other Harfoot are beholden to the philosophy that “Nobody goes off trail and nobody walks alone,” Nori has grander ambitions, and a sweetness about her that makes her very easy to follow.
There is trouble below.
In Bronwyn’s village, the first sign that something’s not quite right arrives when a cow starts giving milk that looks like black goop. Later, Bronwyn discovers a tunnel bearing scratches on the walls that look like they came from orc claws. Meanwhile, adrift in the Sundering Sea after abandoning ship at the end of the first episode, Galadriel takes refuge on a raft with some humans whose ship was demolished by a leviathan, which slithers ominously underwater beneath them.
The point is: All is not calm in or around Middle-earth. At the end of the second episode, in an incredibly tense sequence (well-staged by the director J.A. Bayona, who handled both of these first two hours well), Bronwyn and her son are hiding in a closet in their home as a gaunt orc in a bone-helmet prowls around. She eventually beheads the beast, and then uses her trophy to urge her people to seek refuge with the elves.
This development, as much as any in “The Rings of Power” so far, marks this story as influenced by Tolkien. No “Lord of the Rings” plot really gets going until the heroes leave home.
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