The political crux emerges

With the introduction of Númenor, we are now fully into the story of the latter part of the Second Age. Most of the key moments of the story of the rings, the return of Sauron, and the creation of what would be the Middle-Earth of the Third Age (where Lord of the Rings is set) is based in, affected by, or fully revolves around the island kingdom of Men that was granted to the Dúnedain by the Valar (aka the gods themselves.) This is where most of the political struggle and upheaval that should be central elements of The Rings of Power will take place. With that in mind, it's not surprising that, with a couple excursions to the captive Arondir and (sigh) the half-halfling nature people, all of the action took place in Armenelos, the capital of Númenor, where we were introduced to the key figures of not only Elendil, but his son, Isildur, who ends up having a bit of history with the most important ring of them all.

The amount of money poured into the series was once again on full display, as Armenelos and the port all looked spectacular, as did all of the ships and pretty much every bit of kiwi scenery, CGI-enhanced or not. The series is a visual treat without question. The issue at hand is whether they'll be able to present a story to match. (Just as a side note: I have absolutely zero concern about the impact of racists "review-bombing" the series. With the positive opinions coming from critics and the non-ignorant, the general audience will soon vastly outweigh the closed-minded keyboard warriors who have spent the last few days accusing Neil Gaiman of having ruined Tolkien.) So far, they seem to be doing well with both "canon" material and the new stuff designed to bridge the gaps and bring Tolkien's myths down to earth to some degree. The presence of characters like Halbrand (Charles Vickers) as the smooth-talking, regular guy with the dark past and occasionally criminal habits does help to break the ice that the presence of people like Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) would otherwise create to keep the entire thing at a distance from viewers; kinda like a legend, one would think. One funny side effect of their interaction on screen is that her Welsh accent makes his name "Halbrand" sound like "Hellbrand", which only serves the current fan theory that he's actually Sauron come to Númenor in disguise to scope out the scene. If you want a long-running series with characters that people can identify with, that's typically the best approach.

The other one is to engage a fan sop about the source material and continue to subject us to stories about the little people that hide from every danger. I'm still not particularly thrilled with the Horfoot material because it's still kind of routine and that makes it kind of tedious. The odd contrast is that those scenes also contain the greatest number of characters that the audience can identify with, as Nori (Markella Kavenagh), Sadoc (Lenny Henry), Largo (Dylan Smith), and Poppy (Megan Richards) are at least somewhat funny and quite believable in a charming, Underhill kind of way. But just like with the first two episodes, I continue to not see the necessity of the Horfoots (Horfeet!) other than to add the LotR shine to a story that could've been told without the clown act constantly running. It's not actively repulsive and tiresome like the court scenes in House of the Dragon, but it's such a step down from what else is happening in the story that it stands out as something of a flaw, overall. In something of a contrast, I can't help but arch an eyebrow at some of Clark's moments. One assumes she's been instructed to be such an absurd hothead to present the starkest possible contrast with the ethereal thousands-of-years-older version of Galadriel in LotR. The confrontation with Elendil (Lloyd Owen) over whether she could kill him, fight her away aboard a tiny skiff, and then pilot said skiff singlehandedly out of the port was just a bit OTT on the acting side. Since we've been given the impression that Elvish immortality extends to limitless endurance, given her willingness to swim from Valinor back to Middle-Earth, I suppose it's not completely unreasonable to the point of stupidity, but it's awfully close.

On a couple other production notes, the revelation of the glyph being a map of Mordor and the (for some reason) written plan to create a place where "evil could thrive" was a bit heavy on the melodrama and orchestral crashes, but that may be my "I know all this stuff already" bias speaking. Along those lines, the Númenorean distaste for elves in general and Galadriel in particular strikes me as a bit overdone. What might have softened it somewhat is a bit more elaboration upon why not just the rulers of the island but the people, in general, hold that opinion with such intensity. Even the real racists in our world complaining about non-White actors try to come up with excuses as to why they're so opposed to the presence of people who don't look like them. On that topic of looks, while almost everything is quite stunning on the visual side, I'm not sure we needed 90 seconds of Elendil and Galadriel riding, along with every shot possible of Galadriel, her perfectly white horse, and her flowing blue robes to drive that home. It's also kind of funny to note that, despite the elaborate use of chains as weapons and the savagery of the orcs driving their prisoners, the direct death scene of one of Arondir's (Ismael Cruz Cordóva) compatriots involved as little visible blood as possible and certainly not the kind of arterial spray you'd normally get from a mortal wound on the neck. I'm not objecting to the lack of blood. It just seems like kind of an odd way to pull your punches a few minutes removed from a warg chewing through people. Also, Arondir's commander pointing out that the rudimentary cover to protect the orcs from the sun being "how they hid from our sight" in the middle of a path of devastation through forested land stretching for miles is, uh, a head-scratcher of a script point.

Regardless, it's still entertaining and has me looking forward to subsequent episodes, although I'm willing to question if that's not more because of my latter-day Tolkien nerdism than whether the story is simply that interesting. Bringing in Isildur (Maxim Baldry) this early is an interesting choice, since it allows plenty of time for him to build into the alternately heroic and tragic character that he becomes. OTOH, creating someone new like Adar- apparently an elf serving the forces of Morgoth, which doesn't seem at all irrational given the Kinslayings and the shame of the Noldor that Galadriel avers to -shows a willingness to strike out in new directions, which is certainly of interest. Is it compelling? Not quite yet. Could it be? Positive signs.