‘The Rings Of Power’ Season 2 Finale Review: One Show To Rule Them All

Finally, here we are: the season two finale of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Looking back on the previous seven episodes, we’ve seen perhaps the greatest leap in quality and coherency that the show has yet produced. Going forward, worries about quality, and whether or not the series would truly find footing, have been buried in the mines of Moria.

Rings of Power is a mostly good, and at times great, series. There are occasional qualms on adaptive grounds (some justified, others not) but once you accept that the series must be an entity entirely separate from the content that existed before it in order to actually develop and function as such, it gets a whole lot easier to understand.

Taken on its own merits this is easily one of, if not the most impressive spectacle on television. Showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay have taken on the mammoth task of expanding this franchise with a determined grace, and in time, have proven their capability in spades.

To these eyes, this is easily the best looking show currently running in the television space, too. This season finale takes visual queues from all the best Lord of the Rings content from the past, as well as hints and queries from prior episodes. The visual breadth of this world is unleashed like never before; colors ooze passion in subsequent frames, contrasting lively natural tones against deep, shadowed shades of bile.

Sweeping wide shots of exasperated landscapes cave into striking, long-winded camera work within the walls and halls of whatever set Sauron works to torture. There’s a particular long-take during a battle scene that ranks among the most moving this show has ever managed – it’s just ridiculously neat.

Past the visuals and on the page, this finale carefully (sometimes hastily) juggles every narrative thread proposed thus far. Time is allotted according to importance, which means that you’ll love spending time with the characters you care about and wish you could return to them when you aren’t.

One of the show’s biggest pitfalls continues to be side-plots that don’t exactly work. But again, the show sort of staffs those in the final episode, so they can be taken or left depending on how well they work for you.

But you can feel the fire where it truly burns, and the main story beats that round out this second season are extremely powerful. In bouts of word-to-word combat, Celebrimbor and Sauron bring their multi-episode war over the rings to a head. To this point, it can’t be said enough how wonderful Charles Edwards is in the former role.

Here, he may genuinely move you to tears. He utters one of the most stabbing lines in the series with utmost contentment for the evil across from him, and any fan of the franchise should find goosebumps up and down their arm regardless of how they feel about the rest of the series. It’s an all-time moment of awe.

Charlie Vickers continues to stun as Sauron as well, purporting a sickening lack of morality that attempts to undo any positivity in that of Edwards, and later in the episode, in interactions with Morfydd Clark’s Galadriel.

Much of the episode is fittingly wrapped around Sauron’s finger as he moves from one hero to another, from Eregion’s dying heart to the pitiless forests around it, in an effort to procure the rings. The only cutaway wholly worth investing in otherwise is the early-episode endeavors in Khazad-dum.

Durin’s back-and-forth with his father over the destructive power of his ring connects to the aforementioned quest of Sauron’s quite nicely.  It’s only right that the series has reached a point where the rings feel like the drivers of every conflict in one way or another.

Going forward, it seems the only way is up. The Rings of Power has delivered a thrilling finale with this eighth episode, rounding off what has been a saving grace of a second season overall. The war is far from won, especially if Prime moves forward with their five-season plan for the series – but as for this battle, they can celebrate a convincing victory. The Rings of Power’s second season is a televised triumph, through and through.