Setup pitchers still have to play the game

In modern baseball, it's pretty rare that one pitcher will be on the mound for the entirety of a game. That's why the "complete games" stat is heralded by many as both an accomplishment and an example of what the game used to be and still should be. But the relief pitcher has actually been a regular thing since the 19th century. They've simply become more common in recent decades because of the wear-and-tear that modern pitching takes on human bodies. The arm can only take so much. But that's also why setup men have become even more common, such that what used to be commonplace (one pitcher doing the whole game) has now been largely replaced by three or four pitchers working a single game. Setup guys are the ones you use to bridge the gap between your opener and your closer. They're often overshadowed because they don't carry the glory of being the opener who's supposed to set the tone and get your team ahead or being the closer who's the one who snuffs out any chance of the opposition making a comeback or contesting a close game in the late innings. Episode 5 of Rings of Power was a setup man. It was the bridge between all of the information we've had poured on us in the opening half of the season and what's to come in the rest of it. Similarly to baseball, it means that it really wasn't much of an episode. We knew the orcs were going to attack the watchtower. We're just waiting for them to do so. We knew the Dúnedain were going to sail to Middle-Earth. We're just waiting for them to do so. When you have really monumental events in a story, you want to highlight them so you try to build them up before unleashing their monumentalness in the same way that the setup man tries to reach the last couple innings where the closer can do his work. But there's a limit to all things and when your episode is just build-up to the events that the audience already knows are going to happen, a lot of it feels like time wasted that would otherwise have gone toward building an actual story.

Certainly, there were moments of interest, such as the mysterious white-robed people that early press photos seemed to indicate was Sauron and some of his minions. But the Horfoots traveling while learning of the Big Man (Wiz-War players will know what I'm talkin' about) and his abilities and the Numenóreans preparing for their big voyage and Elrond finally giving up the ghost on mithril and the humans trapped in the tower remaining trapped in the tower while Adar and his orcs plot outside are all just delaying the moments of crisis that are already right there in front of us. Dragging them out won't make them better and, if anything, will often reduce their impact because people like me start doing the "Yeah, let's hurry up" motion with their hands while watching which is a sure way to lose your audience while trying to be grandiloquent about what's not happening. This is one instance where the series' visual resplendence kind of worked against it, as the visuals are still great, but there are only so many times we can see ships in the harbor of Armenelos and be impressed, especially with the orchestral crashes telling us that we should be really impressed.

As has been the case more than once, the most interesting part of the episode once again involved Elrond and Durin, as we learned about the light of the Eldar fading (In the grim darkness of the far future...) and perhaps signaling the end of the elves in Middle-Earth (Spoiler: It doesn't.) It's also a distinct departure from Tolkien's work in that mithril never really held any significance for the elves other than them being fascinated by its beauty, just like the dwarves were, albeit to a less fanatical extent, and realizing that it could make great armor. So, while there have been other deviations in terms of detail, this is the only the second major segue into something genuinely new and different, outside of Adar (and pending the identity of the Big Man (He's not Beorn.) (I think.)) With Gil-galad insisting that the elves need the stuff to keep from fading away, that sets up a genuine socio-political crisis that hadn't been seen to that point in M-E since the First Age and Thingol asking the dwarves to make a necklace for one of the Silmarils and the dwarves becoming enchanted by it and not wanting to give it up. (It's always the jewelry in this world...) That presents an opportunity for more strain on the friendship between Elrond and Durin which isn't exactly mind-blowing in story complexity but does present a lot of opportunity for texture.

That said, the most fascinating character of the moment remains Adar, since he keeps spouting little homilies about how his obvious drive for vengeance is rooted in things far greater than the personal injury that he's suffered. Devout Catholic that he was, all of Tolkien's tales are suffused with themes of faith, divinity, and ancient grudges because of both of those. Adar is going to actually act out that morality play which is a bit more complex and lore-heavy of a motivation than most of what everyone else is carrying. Next week is clearly "the battle episode" so we'll see how it pans out. At the very least, we'll be past the setup and on to the (mid-season) closer.