Season 1, Episodes 1-2: “Shadows of the Past” and “Drifting”
Five years ago, Amazon bought the television rights to JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and invested at least about 10 to produce a five-season prestige drama series set thousands of years before Tolkien’s events. promised to spend billions of dollars. novel. Since then, Tolkien fans have been obsessed with every possible storyline and character tease from the show. I’m questioning whether I can deliver a fantasy event.
Now that the first two episodes of The Lord of the Rings: Ring of Power are finally available to Prime Video subscribers, we have some answers to the lingering questions. Living up to Peter Jackson’s Oscar-winning The Lord of the Rings movie? Too high fantasy for casual TV viewers? too much?
quick take? The series has been solidly entertaining so far, with big-budget gloss, well-drawn characters, and an intricately woven story that shows a lot of promise. has an epic scope, with plotlines involving elves, dwarves, humans, and a hobbit-adjacent group called the Harfoots, taking place in familiar and unfamiliar lands in Middle-earth and beyond.
How long does it take? Well, we’ll cover that here each week, starting with the descriptive first chapter and the more action-driven second chapter. The feature summarizes and analyzes what stands out over the course of his eight episodes in season one, intended as a handy companion to some of the show’s most memorable moments and major plot points. It has been.
Here are seven takeaways from the first two episodes of The Lord of the Rings: Ring of Power.
No knowledge of Tolkien? no problem.
One of the reasons the “Lord of the Rings” movie trilogy was so successful was that Jackson and his team started with a prologue that simplified Tolkien’s story and explained what viewers needed to know. That’s it. Long ago there was an epic battle between the evil lord he Sauron’s army and a coalition of heroic humans and elves. Then the Ring of Almighty fell into the wrong hands and now must be taken to a volcano and destroyed. And we’re off!
“The Rings of Power” similarly sets the stage cleanly and clearly. We are once again in the distant past, when the elves who keep Middle-earth safe have decided that Sauron (still our Big Bad) and his Orc soldiers are no longer an immediate threat. It feels like it’s time to move on…until a series of bizarre events in the first episode left us wondering if there was still a battle of evil to be fought.
Remaining Tolkien-neutral when it comes to “The Rings of Power” may have some advantages. While the series draws on the author’s detailed notes on the fantasy world, showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay of him have made use of the narrative material and materials that appear in Tolkien’s posthumous works like The Silmarillion. Adaptations of characters are not permitted. Instead, the basic premise comes from the appendix history of The Lord of the Rings, embellished with new characters.
Diverse, but not completely colorblind.
One thing Tolkien fans have noticed in the casting announcement for “Rings of Power” is that, in keeping with the great efforts of modern media to diversify the casting, the show has more black people than Jackson’s films. It was about having a brown face. For the most part, the differences in skin tone found within races such as Dwarves and Halfhut are not presented as a major issue.
But it’s important that one of the main characters, Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova), is a dark-skinned Silvan elf. This subset of elves lives and toils alongside the humans of Middle-earth, rather than living in the glittering, remote kingdom of Eldermar or the Middle-earth enclave of Lyndon. Decision. It’s also important that Arondir is romantically involved with Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi), a human healer who works near the village of Sauron’s followers in Southland.
Like “Game of Thrones”?
Yes, in one important way.
You can’t help but compare TV’s “Lord of the Rings” to the much-hyped “House of the Dragon.” Both are expensive prequels derived from popular works of fantasy fiction and arrive at the same time. (It’s Jeff Bezos’ behest to let it go.) But for the most part, “House of the Dragon” is its own. It’s like a show unrelated to the “The Rings of Power” discussion.
That said, anyone who likes “Thrones” will know that “The Rings of Power,” like the opening credits of an HBO hit, zooms in on cool-looking computer-animated maps to give viewers direction. I can’t help but notice how to keep the . And unlike “House of the Dragon,” where most of the action so far has been confined to He One or He Two locations, “Ring of Power” expands that story. In his first two episodes of these, he spends time with the ancient elves of Valinor and roams across the Seas of Separation to Middle-earth. There, the humans of Southland, the nomadic Hafuuts of the secret camp, the elves of Sylvan of the fortress, and the dwarves of the underground city of Khazaddam.
But it’s nothing like “Game of Thrones” either.
Tired of Westeros’ stomach-churning gore, licentious nudity, immoral characters, and generally pessimistic tone? It’s more family friendly than Dragon. Like Jackson’s films, the series’ look is bright, colorful, and full of fantastical awe, like a blockbuster that combines elements of Howard Shore’s film themes with new compositions composed by Bear McCreary. set to a stimulating score.
The characters are also generally more good-natured and heroic, and have brighter, more triumphant personalities. As with Tolkien and Jackson, part of Payne and McKay’s challenge is telling stories with well-defined heroes and villains, leaving room for those heroes to be complicated.
Keep your restful time worry free.
As I mentioned, when the series began, the elven armies had been doing nothing for so long that many of the public began to doubt that Sauron or the Orcs were a real threat. The humans of Middle-earth are tired of the elves patrolling their land and behaving arrogantly. And back in Lyndon, the elven ruling class, as a reward for their valiant service, gave the heroes of Sauron’s battle against Morgoth, the slain master of Sauron, the chance to sail back home in the great light. I’m here.
The warrior Galadriel (Morphid Clarke) keeps seeing Sauron’s mark everywhere, so he’s not sure if his job is done. In the climactic moment at the end of the first episode, Galadriel chooses not to join his companions, instead jumping off the boat before the light carries them away.
Meanwhile, Elrond (Robert Aramayo), Galadriel’s half-elf friend, is sent on errands related to a previously unrevealed larger elven scheme, but eventually turns the series into Tolkien’s. It looks like it could be the forging of the strong rings that connect. Book. Elrond said he traveled to Khazad-dum to talk with his old dwarven companion Durin (Owain Arthur). Durin feels particularly bad because Elrond did not come to his wedding. He is only here when the elves need another boon.
In short, while all seems well in Middle-earth, there is underlying tension between all these races that once opposed Morgoth and Sauron, and they are taking proactive steps to prevent future troubles. You could end up being a hero like Galadriel or Elrond — even if those steps caused trouble.
There are giants in the sky.
Another key moment at the end of the first episode occurs outside the Haft settlement. There, a fireball blazing in the sky collides and leaves a huge crater with the body of a large humanoid (Daniel Wayman) placed inside. Her Harfoot, an adventurous named Nori (Markella Kavenagh), finds an as-yet-unnamed Starman who speaks no recognizable language and exerts strange magical powers over the course of the second episode. At some point, this “stranger” ends up breaking a twig, and when he returns to the village of Hafut, Nori’s father ends up breaking his ankle. The Stranger then flips over Halfhut’s lantern and engages in a mumbling conversation with the Firefly inside.
It’s too early to speculate on who or what the stranger actually is (although it’s worth noting that the show so far has a distinct lack of wizards). At this point, his arrival is significant in that it gives more screen time to Nori, a character who broke out in the first two episodes. While the other halfuts are guarded by the philosophy that “no one goes astray and no one walks alone”, Nori has grander ambitions and her naivety about her Make her chase after you very easily.
There is a problem below.
In the village of Bronwyn, the first sign that something is wrong is when the cows start producing black, sticky milk. Bronwyn then discovers a tunnel with scars on the walls that look like oak claws. Meanwhile, Galadriel, who is adrift in the Sea of Separation after abandoning his ship at the end of the first episode, takes refuge on a raft with some humans whose ship was destroyed by Leviathan.
The point is that in and around Middle-earth, not everything is calm. At the end of the second episode, in an incredibly tense sequence (well-directed by director JA Bayona, who handled both of her first two hours well), Bronwyn and her son meet a lean orc. is hidden in the closet at home. It wanders around wearing a helmet of bones. She eventually decapitates the beast and uses her trophies to urge people to seek refuge with the elves.
This development, like the previous “The Rings of Power”, shows the Tolkien influence of this story. The plot of The Lord of the Rings doesn’t really begin until the heroes leave home.