With the second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, at least thus far, it’s clear that the showrunners and all involved care deeply about the world that they’re adapting into a new story. Any past suggestions of lazy writing or careless pandering are dead. It’s not a perfect show, not by any means, but the idea that it’s some corporate conspiracy to sneakily overhaul everything Tolkien created simply doesn’t deserve a place in the discussion.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, episodes 1-4 of the second season are out and about on Prime Video. Up to the halfway point, Rings of Power spends a lot of time talking. Talking about characters and their pasts, about current conflicts that plague the world, and, of course, talking about Sauron.
It’s hard to talk about the latter without spoilery specifics, but rest assured that Sauron is as horrifying a name to utter here as ever. There’s a supernatural reverence about the way his character is handled, and it’s perhaps the greatest nod to the source material and original films that the series consistently manages.
Season two picks up in pretty much exactly the same spot the first one left off. The Stranger is on a trek with Nori, Sauron is sulking about in caves and dark corners, and Galadriel and Elrond are set out to stop him. Familiar names, (somewhat) familiar faces, go to familiar places.
Rings of Power suffers a little in that way. It can be argued that comparing the show to Peter Jackson’s films isn’t a totally fair comparison, but with a rumored budget of up to 1 billion (yes, billion with a B) dollars, it seems fair enough to do so. The show looks both good and properly expensive, but still, when sat side-by-side with the natural, almost ethereal beauty of Jackson’s trilogy, it pales.
Locations appear complex but come off shallow in execution. Complicated sets aren’t inherently realistic, or lived-in, and many of them here look like displays in a movie museum rather than places people actually live. The same goes for the costumes. They’re elegant, detailed, and… far too clean. Everyone looks like they’ve just slid their robes on over a hoodie and sweatpants, as if they’ll be able to get them off and return to normal as soon as the scene ends. It’s a beautiful show, really, and the budget shows, but it almost comes off too overzealous in that way. You can’t help but feel like the whole thing is just a little derivative.
Thankfully, regarding more crucial matters, Rings of Power delivers where it must. Circling back to Sauron’s “aura”, if you will, everyone on his shadowed heels display a gripping sense of urgency. Morfydd Clark (Galadriel) and Robert Aramayo (Elrond) are utterly sensational leads. They carry the drama on-screen and embody being the face(s) of the show. Everyone has a favorite character, but in the best works, there are characters that demand such admiration. Due in large part to those two performances, Galadriel and Elrond certainly do here.
In large part, the story is quite compelling on its own merits too. The Stranger’s side plot still struggles to drum up any real intrigue as a result of being relatively disconnected from the main action, but as far as the rest of it goes, this is a well-thought-out, intentionally structured episodic saga through the heart of Middle Earth – the same heart that propelled Peter Jackson’s trilogy into cinematic infamy, it exists here.
Even if it doesn’t hit quite the same as the stories before it, Rings of Power is still one of the greatest spectacles on TV and deserves at least a chance from all parties. Diehard fans of the source material may have a slightly harder time committing, but there’s plenty here to appreciate even from that perspective. For everyone else, it’s a big, brash show that boasts professionalism in every corner. We’ll see how the last four episodes pan out, but as of right now, this is an overall win.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is currently available to stream on Prime Video with new episodes debuting every Thursday.
Even if it doesn’t hit quite the same as the stories before it, Rings of Power is still one of the greatest spectacles on TV and deserves at least a chance from all parties. Diehard fans of the source material may have a slightly harder time committing, but there’s plenty here to appreciate even from that perspective. For everyone else, it’s a big, brash show that boasts professionalism in every corner. We’ll see how the last four episodes pan out, but as of right now, this is an overall win.
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GVN Rating
Movies, long drives, and mint chocolate chip ice cream.
Are you kidding ??did you watch it at all ..
Stop being a hater and just enjoy it! It was good
There is something deeply disturbing about the kind of internal or external lying a writer has do to write an article so disconnected with what was actually shown on screen. Sauron being stabbed by five orcs, turning into black spaghetti goo, and becoming literal roadkill is respectful?
Copy and pasting the barrow-wights from LOTR to the second age when they literally cannot exist because the Witch King has not yet been created…that isn’t lazy writing?
Having Elrond refuse an oath influenced by Nenya only to seconds afterwards, take an oath influenced by Nenya? There is nothing to appreciate here for anyone who likes the source material or vaguely coherent plot.