The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (S1 Ep3) “Adar”
I will be the first to admit that The Rings of Power hasn’t exactly been “must see viewing”. This is even coming from a guy who has read many of the Tolkien books and adored the films since they were made. Well, maybe there wasn’t much adoration for The Hobbit flicks but they weren’t terrible. In fact, I tend to think of franchises like this in terms of Star Wars and when I do that I would say that the original LoTR trilogy is the original Star War Trilogy. The Hobbit trilogy is the new set of films and that would make this Amazon series the prequels….take that for what it is.
Much like the Star Wars prequels, no one can say that the visuals aren’t amazing. Every frame of this show looks like it cost a lot of money because it probably did. The shots aren’t really original or unique in any way but they do look good. We find our heroine Galadriel and her now companion Halbrand on a ship destined for the island kingdom of Numenor. It’s a magnificent city and it appears that Halbrand would like nothing more than to just stay there and start anew.
Arondir and his Elf friends are all being held captive by the Orcs in their work camp. It seems that they are searching for something in the ground as they are digging all day long and if I were to bet I would say the search is for the sword that the boy found in the earlier episode.
Numeorians hate Elves.
The man who found Galadriel and Halbrand is the Captain Elendil. It’s important because his son is Isildur and he’s the bloke who sliced off Sauron’s fingies. He’s tasked by the Queen Regent to watch over Galadriel and he takes it upon himself to show her a bunch of shit that is only going to get them all into a bunch of trouble. Most of the characters in this show are just out to make their lives more difficult. Curiosity killed the cat and I’m certain that it’s going to bring a shitstorm upon the lives of most of these people.
It’s totally fitting that every character in this series is some sort of major character in a future project because we just learned that Halbrand’s line used to be kings. I guess he’s like a Aldi version of Aragorn and while his beard is quite a ways from Viggo’s, so is his charisma on screen. I honestly was just hoping he would just be a normal dude and not need some mysterious backstory that destines him for greatness.
I’m willing to admit now that the Harfoot storyline is worse than Galadriel’s.
We finally get some action in the episode when the Elves attempt to escape from the work camp and get their asses stomped by the Orcs and a Warg. It’s a great scene for the few minutes that it lasts but we also get to see that these Orcs aren’t no pushovers like their future brethren and their main boss Adar isn’t far away.
The newest episode of The Rings of Power is full of stuff but not much is really happening. It appears that the events of the episode only happen over the course of a day or two but there is just so much drama without any payoff. None of the storylines seem anywhere close to completion and I’m destined to be watching this show till the end just to see what the hell is gonna happen. It’s ok for a character to show up for an episode or two and then be gone. Not everyone needs to have some long and drawn out story that carries over into the Peter Jackson trilogy. At this point, I hope Sauron wins.
