I have somehow made it through the first three episodes of The Rings Of Power Season 2 on Prime Video, though the show’s sophomore effort did not make this either pleasant or easy for me. The trappings of a decent epic fantasy are here. It looks good (except for when it looks like a movie set) and it sounds very nice (though Bear McCreary’s score is not particularly memorable compared to many of his better works) but that’s about it. Season 2 is, if anything, worse than Season 1, or at least messier.
Sure, it picks up the action a bit, but somehow the soulless Season 1 feels downright poignant compared to whatever this second season brings to the table. I’m astonished both by its lack of coherent storytelling and its utter absence of anything like heart, no matter how many times the characters say Very Deep Things to one another as music swells dramatically—and loudly—to instruct us how to feel.
The creators of this show—Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne—took Tolkien’s work and made their own world out of it, borrowing little bits and pieces in order to market it to a wider audience. They have given us a sprawling Middle-earth made up of patchwork Tolkienesque pieces, a clumsy but grand Frankenstein’s monster of a show. What they’ve forgotten to do is give us a reason to care.
And so we have a tangled thicket of various storylines, none of which really seem to matter outside of the central plot: Sauron/Annatar seducing Celebrimbor, tricking him into crafting rings of power by playing to his pride, invoking his infamous grandsire, Fëanor. But even there, we’re all out of order. The show had the elven rings crafted at the end of season 1, when those rings ought to have been crafted last by Celebrimbor and in secret, after the elven smith had lost faith in Annatar (while Sauron crafted the One Ring also in secret).
Perhaps because of all the liberties taken in the first season, Season 2 is a jumbled mess. We get Elrond absconding with the three elven rings while Galadriel and Gil-Galad hunt him down, Fugitive-style. They need these Mithril-alloyed rings to save elfendom, after all. So Elrond goes to the shipwright, Círdan, who helps him for a minute before deciding that no, never mind, he’s with Gil and Gal on this one. The rings are super dope, after all.
And that’s true, for the most part. The elven rings in Tolkien’s work were untouched by Sauron. It was only through the power of the One Ring that he could bend any of the other rings to his will, and long after the men became his otherworldly vassals and the dwarven rings were lost, the Three remained hidden. But much ado is made of these elven rings. We need Conflict Between Main Characters, after all, even if it doesn’t really make sense. It’s all very strange.
Harder to follow is Sauron’s storyline this season—or at least during in the three episodes I’ve watched so far. We open to a younger version of the Dark Lord being stabbed to a pulp by Adar’s orcs, after which he turns into a Venom-like black goop, ambushes a woman as she Nomadlands, and then becomes Halbrand. At one point we see him go to the sea (which is always right) and meet up with Galadriel, but then he’s back in the Southlands pretending to be the king there, taken captive by Adar and his orcs, escaping and venturing back to Celebrimbor in Eregion. A
pparently, Galadriel never warned Celebrimbor that he was actually Sauron. I’m not sure how this all spreads out sensibly on the timeline. It’s peculiar to say the least, given we saw Halbrand abscond to Mordor at the end of Season 1. Why do we need all this backstory and other nonsense to confuse things?
It doesn’t help that they’ve condensed everything else, so that we’re also juggling the dwarves and their constant bickering, the Númenoreans and their constant bickering and a whole side-plot with Isildur and his new girlfriend as they escape the Southlands—plus Arondir, Theo and a jarringly dead Bronwyn (did they really have to kill her off in such an awkwardly offscreen manner?)
So much is happening in the first three episodes but so little of it matters. One can’t help but think these guys bit off far, far more than they could chew. There are so few human moments, so few bits where you laugh or grow fond of any of these characters, that it’s mostly like watching a series of events transpire (though not in any semblance or order) rather than watching a story unfold. The only saving grace—and it’s not much—is that we get less of bossgirl Galadriel this season. Her role is greatly diminished (thankfully) but nothing very compelling takes its place, and we’re left without a very strong sense of who this story is supposed to be about. There are too many stories crammed into one show, too many timelines condensed into one timeline, for any of it to really matter.
Meanwhile, every elven scene is crammed to the brim with Very Meaningful and Deep dialogue, often florid and grandiose, in ways that do not reflect how people actually speak to one another—including elves. Purple prose’s chatty cousin is a relentless bastard. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.
Honestly, I found the first three episodes of Season 2 exhausting in general. It’s all over the place. Things are constantly Very Serious but without any sort of emotional hook to make us care. This show suffers from the common problems so many prequels face, amplified by the bad writing and two-dimensional characters that leave Rings Of Power feeling so shallow despite all its pretensions and big budget affect. It all feels (and looks and sounds) wildly generic. Fantasy should be imaginative and distinct, but so much of what we get these days bends ever toward this devoutly generic aesthetic.
And I haven’t even mentioned the Baby Gandalf storyline, which takes us into Rhûn with Nori and a surprise appearance by Poppy who, it turns out, is an intrepid explorer who easily follows her friend and not-Gandalf through the desert and brings with her both biscuits and maps, effectively saving the day because that makes sense. Or what about this new evil wizard hunting the ISTAR (he says this many times, ISTAR, to let us know—wink wink, nudge nudge—that the Stranger is totally Gandalf, actually) and some masked dudes that look like they sprang directly out of Star Wars or Mad Max because sure, that fits the aesthetic we’re going for with Lord of the Rings. If I sound annoyed and a bit flippant it’s because I am. These things and more.
There is so much superfluous nonsense in this show. In fact, when you really shake the branches it’s hard to see if anything that falls to the ground isn’t superfluous. Is there an actual story here or are we just following lots of different characters as they do stuff, mostly separate from one another, and magically solve problems that don’t really matter to begin with? I’ve also forgotten to mention the coup in Númenor, which is frankly one of the most bizarre sequences I’ve ever seen, with a great eagle—of all things—effectively confirming the outcome as our various heroes—Elendil, mostly—stand around looking as confused as I felt.
Oh well, the eagle is always right. Or something.
I’ve read some reviewers complain that this is all too dense. They’re missing out on the story, they opine, because they’re not familiar enough with Tolkien’s lore. But nothing here is even remotely based on Tolkien’s lore beyond the vaguely Middle-earth setting and some familiar characters. Or perhaps I should say doppelgangers. This Galadriel is not Tolkien’s Galadriel. There was only ever one Durin. Gandalf didn’t have some weird phallic staff quest to flesh out his backstory.
I hope the rest of the season picks up because these first three episodes were a wearisome slog. The battle for Eregion might be cool, but I maintain that battles are only interesting if we care about those who might die or suffer or emerge victorious. Outside of the main characters who we know won’t perish (Elrond, Galadriel, etc.) there just aren’t many to root for—though I do admire Arondir’s combat ability and would very much like someone to lop off Theo’s head. Honestly, this version of Stories From Middle-earth makes me want to root for Sauron. That’s a problem.
This isn’t Lord of the Rings in any way shape or form. It’s just Amazon buying the rights to little fragments of it, and jampacking and piecemealing it into a form that apes, badly, hideously, carelessly, Tolkien’s legendarium.
What did you think of the first three episodes of Season 2, dearest readers? Are you with me on this one, or are you with the Rotten Tomatoes consensus that this is the best thing since sliced Lembas?
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