(avg. read time: 73–147 mins.)
Episode 8
We come to it at last, the end of all this mess. I would dare say that the show has saved the worst for last. This time, Payne and McKay once again accept writing credits for this episode, but they are also joined by Gennifer Hutchison. Like the writer of the previous episode, she worked on “Adar,” which does not bode well. At the same time, she has contributed to writing for Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad, and The Strain, none of which I have watched, but the first two shows have lofty reputations. Whatever the merits of her writing on those shows, I am afraid she has hitched her wagon to a sinking ship named S.S. Payne and McKay, and they are dragging her writing down with them. I do not claim to know what all went on in the writers’ room in terms of how this script came to be, but I do think that, no matter how good a writer Hutchison was before, she has made no noticeable impact in improving the quality of this episode above the rest of the show.
An Unusual Opening
The episode breaks with the precedent set since episode 2 by opening with a scene rather than the title sequence. This must be extra important, then. And so the first thing we see is Asteroid Man wandering around in the forest, until he sees someone who looks like Nori, he drops the apple, and the apple rolls an impossibly far distance in an impossibly short time over stones and up an incline to be picked up by the person who looks like Nori. The person who looks like Nori then reveals that she is Eminem. There is no apparent reason for her to change shape in this context. She did not need to lure Asteroid Man. Literally the only reason we see this action is because it is an artificial way to establish that she can do it for a later scene. As usual, the writers could not think of a more natural way to set this up, so this scene is what we are left with. Not that the shapeshifting really matters that much in the episode, but it is there for bad action direction, as we will get to later.
After Eminem reveals herself, the other two cultists show up, one of them speaks to Asteroid Man in Quenya. Why? Don’t know. We later find out these women are supposedly from Rhûn, the land of the Easterlings, so you would think they would be speaking a language appropriate to that land, particularly since they seem to expect that he will need to go there. Or maybe they could speak in Black Speech, since Sauron devised it. I’m just not sure why, from their perspective, they would need to speak in Quenya.
More important is what they say, as they claim to have come to serve the one they call “Lord Sauron.” This, followed by them kneeling before him, is what these writers seem to think is a good opening stinger. These cultists do not have good reason to think that he is Sauron, nor is there any real reason for the audience to think he is Sauron, so this just instantly makes these cultists less threatening because it makes them look unintelligent. But the scene is here because the writers thought it was so important to open with an obvious fake-out. That goes to show how superficially they think. If they had thought more about this, you would think they could have come up with some kind of decent reason for why people who live as far apart as these cultists from Rhûn and Waldreg in the Southlands thought that the asteroid signified Sauron. There is no framing myth for this idea. Frankly, coming in an asteroid does not fit any character in Tolkien’s writings, but it would help if there was reason given for why anyone thought that Sauron, who had been on earth before, somehow left and supposedly would return in an asteroid. But no. We are simply told that these people from completely different contexts think this asteroid signifies Sauron, not why they think it. If there is one question these writers don’t like to think about, it is “why?”
Eregion and the Collapsing of Space and Time
We then cut to the other major storyline in Middle-earth. I will say that my initial draft of the episode 7 review worked on the assumption that Galadriel and Halbrand were traveling all the way to Lindon. As absurd as such a trip would be, especially with him wounded as he is, considering that it would be a longer trip than Frodo’s Quest, it seemed a reasonable inference that this was their destination considering that Galadriel said she would report to the High King. But, presumably, the plan changed to taking him to Eregion without an explicit declaration to that effect. It’s not that it doesn’t make sense for the plan to change—it does—but it’s just a minor hiccup in the conveyance of information. More importantly, the trip is still absurdly long, but I will get to that. It sure is fortunate for her that time, space, characters, and animals bend to her will, as she does not even need to concern herself with going to Gil-galad herself, since he just so happens to be coming to Eregion already. And I will say, the image of her approaching Eregion (with yet another time-wasting slow-motion shot) while pulling the horse behind her where Halbrand is completely slumped over so that he is laying on the horse is unintentionally hilarious.
Then after the establishing shot of Eregion (where we see the tower with its scaffolding in the background, which will be significant for another comment later), we cut to a conversation between Elrond and Celebrimbor. Elrond says that Gil-galad will arrive tomorrow in Eregion. I noted in my episode 5 review that the trip from the Grey Havens to Khazad-dûm would take eight weeks, according to the model of Frodo’s Quest (and removing the extended stay in Rivendell). I also proceeded in that review on the idea that the trip could potentially be cut down by a week. Of course, the trip could actually take up to a couple weeks longer depending on where Gil-galad actually is in Lindon (particularly if he is near the coast, which is around twice as far from the Grey Havens as the Grey Havens are from Hobbiton), since the first episode implied that the Great Tree is somewhere other than the Grey Havens/Mithlond because Galadriel’s party was to be escorted there. The point I made in that review is how little urgency Gil-galad had in this whole affair, since the Elves apparently have a deadline of the coming spring and he has had Elrond travel all the way from Lindon, stay for however long it took to build that tower to the point it reached in episode 4, and then come all the way back before he finally told him what was happening. At a trip of 7 to 9 weeks one way, that means that he had delayed telling Elrond about his true purpose in the area for over three-and-a-half to four-and-a-half months, plus whatever time elapsed in the construction of the tower. Then he would have Elrond go on another trip there, and presumably wait for him to come back with what was needed, thereby adding another three-and-a-half to four-and-a-half months. We would need to presume an additional 7 to 9 weeks for this trip, since I guess Elrond sent a messenger to Gil-galad and now Gil-galad is making the trip to Eregion himself (which is a trip of a few days closer than Khazad-dûm). At least, that is what the timeline would be if the writers were at all considerate of the distances involved.
From what we will learn later, this day is apparently six or seven days after the volcano erupted in Mordor. Yet Gil-galad was in Lindon recently enough that he was able to know that this eruption is correlated with the Great Tree all but “bleeding leaves.” Either word reached him that absurdly fast about what happened on the other side of the continent before he set out for Eregion, or he saw this thing happen with the Great Tree and he only learned after speaking with Galadriel what caused the tree to go into this accelerated state of decay. We do not know for sure either way because the writers do not care to tell us how Gil-galad came to this information. But in any case, he had to have been in Lindon within the last seven days to observe this phenomenon and he is expected to be in Eregion the next day from this. Assuming Gil-galad left right away and did not observe this effect over multiple days, and assuming that Elrond simply divined this idea that Gil-galad would arrive tomorrow out of nothing without word from an advance messenger (who would obviously have traveled even faster in this scenario), that means the writers want us to believe that a trip from Lindon to Eregion, even without any horses involved (we never see them), would take 7 OR 8 DAYS AT MOST. It took eight days for Frodo to travel from Hobbiton to the Grey Havens, but in that same time, Gil-galad and his company can make the trip about halfway across the continent from near its furthest west point. All the meticulous work Tolkien put into his maps and his chronology to make everything line up, so that revisions to his maps and/or chronology would mean revisions to his story and vice versa, it all means nothing to these writers. That has been evident throughout the series, and the story is no different here.
Of course, another missing factor to all of this is how to account for Celebrimbor. Did Celebrimbor go back with Elrond? If so, why did he not go into Khazad-dûm with him? Did he wait some time and then return to Eregion later? We will never know, but he is just here back in Eregion chatting it up with Elrond.
By the way, in case you were not aware, this is supposed to be the episode where we see Celebrimbor’s wisdom and skill in craftsmanship on display. We have literally never seen it before. The “tests” he did on mithril were done offscreen, so we could not even get a peek of his skill and/or wisdom there. If you were not told he was so skilled, and you were not aware from Tolkien’s work that Celebrimbor was probably the greatest Elven smith since Fëanor, you would not be able to guess what a master he is from this episode. Because the writers cannot write characters smarter than themselves, Celebrimbor does not come across as especially wise or masterful, especially when he needs to be taught one of the basic principles of metallurgy. This will be yet another case of where the writers try to make one character look competent/smart by making other characters incompetent.
This tendency in writing his character for this episode begins with him only now, ONLY NOW having the thought, “If only there was some way of doing more with less.” Of course, this is contrived writing because this line is here strictly for the audience’s benefit. You would think he would have thought of this idea sometime in the previous days, but he only thinks of it now because the writers have deemed that the audience only needs to hear about it now.
As an illustration of doing more with less, he speaks of how the sun itself, “began as something no bigger than the palm of my hand.” This is not really a point worth making in this context, particularly since the sun has nothing to do with what he is trying to do and he does not have at his disposal the powers of Yavanna, Nienna, Manwë, and Aulë by which the last fruit of Laurelin became the sun (and the last fruit of Telperion became the moon). This is also one of those cases where the writers are referring to something they do not have the rights to, since the story is not referenced in LOTR. Thus, I guess they can reference things outside of LOTR, but they could not visually adapt them. If that is the case, there are so many other things they could have referenced to this point in the series without visually adapting them. But it is too late now. The damage by what the writers wrote and by what they left unwritten to this point has been done, and they cannot repair it. The bells full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing, cannot be un-rung.
In fact, Elrond is now willing to take for granted that the Elves must prepare to leave Middle-earth forever. I must remind the reader that this is in response to the absurd possibility of them losing their immortality (absurd because there is no such possibility in Tolkien’s works, though there are exceptional characters like Elrond and his brother Elros who, because of their mixed lineage, get a choice in whether they share in the fate of Elves or Men). They apparently must leave Middle-earth not because they will die immediately after the supposed deadline if they do not. It is because they will simply die eventually otherwise. Of course, I don’t know why Elrond did not think of the ideas I suggested in the previous review about just passing the mithril around or putting it next to the Great Tree to see what that does. I am not sure why he did not think of such a test in the first place when he was in Lindon, but we have already gone over that.
But before these guys do anything else, the writers need to remind us that Middle-earth is a remarkably small world. Of all the Elves in Eregion and all the Elves in the world, the first one Galadriel encounters upon her arrival in Eregion is Elrond. But that is not all the writers do to tell us that Middle-earth is a small world. You remember that figure of “7 or 8 days” I said before? That is based on how long Galadriel says it took her to travel from Mordor, with the addition of possibly a whole extra day since the volcano erupted before that and one more day for Gil-galad to arrive in Eregion after this encounter. That is right, Galadriel says Halbrand suffered his wound from an “enemy lance” (though we have seen no Orcs carrying lances, no one told her in the previous episode it was from a lance, and it looks more like a cut wound than a stab wound from what we see on his shirt) 6 DAYS AGO. Considering that this wound was inflicted the day before she and Halbrand left the Númenórean encampment on the edge of Mordor, that means it took her all of 5 DAYS to travel to Eregion from their place however far south of Mount Doom. I will quote again what I said in my episode 7 review:
If we subtract the extended stay the Fellowship took in Lothlórien, it took Frodo 48 days to get from the land of Eregion to Mount Doom (according to information taken from Appendices B and D), with a detour of an attempted trip across Caradhras, and that total includes 9 days of traveling by boat on a river at what would have been at a faster pace than walking (since they covered somewhere over 300 miles in that time and they were going with the current). Then you need to add however far away they are from Mount Doom, and add in having to go out of their way north to cross at what will be called Cair Andros (around 50 miles north from where Minas Tirith will be located), since Osgiliath does not exist. While they could potentially have a straighter road after crossing at Cair Andros by keeping south of the Misty Mountains, it is not a significantly shorter trip.
How, then, does Galadriel explain how they crossed what is supposed to be such a vast distance in only 5 days? “We rode without rest.” I am not kidding. That is literally her line. I was joking before about how they were obviously going to abuse the horses, but the writers are not joking. Those horses should be freaking dead from exhaustion well before being made to gallop (or trotting at minimum) for five days without rest (and not even having anything to eat or drink). I remind you that it took the Rohirrim five days to ride from Dunharrow to Minas Tirith, even with the urgency of the situation, because they understood that horses need rest and people need rest. But these two characters rode probably close to three times that distance with one of them being severely wounded. Also, all of this horse-riding has surely made Halbrand’s wound and infection worse on top of the fact that it has had no treatment in the last five days. If he was not a Dark Lord, he would surely be dead by now along with the horses (don’t worry, we will get to that reveal). At least it is clear why the writers have been so vague about the chronology of this show. When they try to line things up with actual numbers of days given, it is embarrassingly bad.
Catching Up on the Absurdity
Fortunately for Halbrand, the Elves have a non-artificer on site who is actually able to treat Halbrand’s wound. While the Elves are treating him, Galadriel and Elrond catch up. Amazon Galadriel is her usual difficult self when she responds to Elrond’s entirely reasonable question, “How is it you are here?” with, “How is it you are here?” Elrond nods as if this is a fair response, but it is absolutely not. Elrond never left Middle-earth, and according to the writers’ weird bending of space and time, it is not a huge trip for him to get here from where you last saw him. But Galadriel got on a boat to the Undying Lands and went the really long way around to Eregion after he saw her leave on the boat. From his perspective, he does not know if something horrible happened (like an attack by that Worm creature that only showed up for one scene in an entirely unnecessary sequence) that she might be the only one alive from that party that she set out with. Even without that consideration, it is much more unusual that she would be here after everything that has happened than that he would be here. At some point, she needs to learn how conversations work (so do a lot of other characters in this show). But anyway, these characters will end up recapping the series to each other offscreen.
Elrond responds to hearing the absurd story that we have had to endure this season by saying, “I should never have sent you on that ship. I should have trusted you. It is a mistake I will not make again.” This is a deeply ironic line in light of what we will see later, but let’s break this down piece-by-piece. First, Gil-galad sent her on that ship, not Elrond. What is with people in this show only accepting fault for things they are not at fault for? Second, oddly enough, from Gil-galad’s perspective, his first absurd theory of how to get rid of the blight has technically never been disproven. Amazon Galadriel never returned to the Undying Lands, so for all Elrond and Gil-galad, she still may be responsible for keeping the blight around. Even though they are (kind of) wrong, I would not blame them for thinking that getting rid of her will solve their problems. They do know her, after all. Third, as a matter of fact, Elrond is right that she should never have been put on that ship because then the rest of the story would not have unfolded. She would not have found Sauron, she would not have brought him back to Middle-earth, and all of the untold suffering that will come as a result would not have been happened. Mordor still would have been created through the most absurd of circumstances, but Sauron would not be at its helm. But the show is going to make her share responsibility for Sauron’s great evil in the Second and Third Ages. And WE WILL GET TO THAT. Fourth, no, Elrond should not have trusted her. The writers will make it so that she is right and Elrond is wrong, but that does not make her trustworthy. In fact, in case anyone did not find reason enough to deem her untrustworthy throughout the run of this first season, the way this episode ends will show just how untrustworthy she is, particularly since she will ensure that Sauron continues on in the way of evil. Fifth, Elrond is going to regret promising that he will not distrust her again. He is going to regret it by the end of this same episode. But as is customary for Elrond in this series, he will not even keep that promise because he is not trustworthy either.
Galadriel’s subsequent line also needs to be dissected. Here it is in full:
I leapt from that ship because I believed in my heart I was not yet worthy of it. I knew that, somehow, my task here was not yet complete. And when I surfaced, all I could do was swim, and pray I had chosen wisely. I did not cross that bitter ocean only to drown now. And nor will I let you.
This is incredibly laughable. First, anyone who watched the first episode knows that she did not leap from the ship because she did not think she was worthy of Valinor. She did not think the others were more worthy of it than her. She simply had revenge on her mind and could not let go of it, so that is why she jumped into the sea in what is still one of the stupidest moments of the show. But without that stupidity of jumping into what Galadriel herself described in episode 3 as facing “CERTAIN DEATH,” the rest of the story involving her, Númenor, and Sauron could not have happened as it did. Rather, it was that she was going to get revenge or kill herself trying rather than receive paradise. Tolkien’s Galadriel at least had understandable reasons for not seeking a return to the Undying Lands until the end of the Third Age. Amazon Galadriel only has plot-contrived stupidity.
Second, the writers have still not explained why she could not have come back from the Undying Lands. Such travel in the Second Age was allowable. In fact, Glorfindel came back to Middle-earth this way after his re-embodiment. Those attendants on the ship surely must have been headed back, unless we are supposed to believe they did something incredibly special that made them also worthy of returning to the Undying Lands forever. But no, she had to jump out just when she did at the last possible moment and not do anything more sensible. Otherwise, she would not have encountered Halbrand and enabled the rest of the plot to happen.
Third, as such, her saying that she prayed she made the right choice is especially laughable. From her own words of saying that she would have faced CERTAIN DEATH but for Elendil’s intervention, she obviously did not make the right choice of potentially killing herself rather than going to the Undying Lands. And from the way the story unfolds by the end of this episode, she obviously did not make the right choice in that regard either. Thus, her counsel is not going to be helpful in the slightest.
Fourth, note that this is all a response to Elrond’s statement expressing his regret. As is not uncommon in this show, this line is especially unfit for the purpose of this conversation. In context, the way the line ends makes it sound like, when he says he will not make the mistake again, her response is, “I know; I won’t let you.” Of course, the way she summarizes this point makes it sound like she is saying she swam all the way across the ocean, when she only swam part of the way and was saved by plot to get to Númenor, and the Númenóreans brought her the rest of the way. I would guess the reference to drowning is to the idea that the Elves have a limited time to fix their stuff or *shock and horror* become mortal, since I imagine that came up in the offscreen conversation, but in the context of what we have been shown, it is not entirely clear.
The conversation ends with this question and response: “What are we to do?” “The only thing we can do: swim.” Thanks for nothing, Amazon Galadriel. I understand that she is sticking with a motif, because she tends to do that and she tends to do that annoying pretend-witty catchword tripe, but this is among the least helpful things she could have said, especially since it is lacking in any specificity. Although, if you think about it, there is a sort of parallel in the stupidity that unfolds from here and what happened with her after she jumped from the ship. Leap, keep going, and the plot will ensure a Dark Lord will appear to provide you a solution.
Celebrimbor the Master Smith Smith with Plot-Convenient Ignorance
Speaking of the Dark Lord, our next scene is with Halbrand and Celebrimbor. Halbrand has recovered from his wound overnight, and no one expresses suspicion about this particular thing, as strange as it is for someone pretending to be a mortal Man. Halbrand asks Celebrimbor where he is and Celebrimbor briefly turns into Jimmy, a one-off character from Seinfeld, by referring to himself in the third person: “This was the workshop of Celebrimbor.” Apparently, Halbrand has heard of the Celebrimbor. His explanation is that “The master I apprenticed to used to speak of the wonders of your craft.” Not exactly a convincing cover story, but it does appeal to Celebrimbor’s apparent vanity and his lack of curiosity of how he would be so well known in the Southlands (since Halbrand was supposedly a smith before he came to Númenor, and we have no basis for thinking that Celebrimbor knows about him working in Númenor). But this whole exchange is the least goofy thing about this whole scene that is supposed to be the setup for how and why Sauron became involved in the making of the Rings of Power. I will get to the sins against Tolkien’s lore later; for now let us just focus on this scene.
Halbrand sees three gemstones of ruby, sapphire, and adamant that look uncut (nor will they be well cut by the end of the episode), and he lies to say that he has never seen gems like this before, as if they are especially beautiful. He then asks what Celebrimbor will use them for. Celebrimbor’s response is, typically, indirect: “Fëanor’s jewelcraft [sic.] managed to capture the essence of Valinor. I had hoped to do the same for Middle-earth.” Apparently, he thought these were going to be a lesser set of Silmarils. But the Silmarils were what they were because they captured the light of the Two Trees. What was Celebrimbor going to capture in these gemstones? Don’t know. And we are never going to know. The writers just needed some vague explanation for the existence of these gemstones because they wanted them to exist already, rather than more naturally being something brought in to add to Rings already being made. It is a rather arbitrary decision, but it fits with the tendency where the first season is not actually building to the making of the Rings of Power so much as the Rings of Power being a last-ditch salvage effort to use what is on hand. Seriously, Celebrimbor, Sauron, and others will make the Rings of Power simply because, “Well, we don’t have any better ideas.” What a disservice to Tolkien’s work.
Halbrand also asks what the piece of mithril is and Celebrimbor’s response is again not particularly helpful: “Not enough.” For no apparent reason, Celebrimbor does not tell him what it actually is, but the “not enough” comment paves the way for Halbrand to give Celebrimbor the idea for alloying after Celebrimbor says that adding other metals would dilute the mithril’s qualities: “Forgive me, but uh, at the risk of sounding a fool, couldn’t the right alloy also amplify those qualities?” Yes, Celebrimbor, possibly the greatest Elven smith since Fëanor, never considered this possibility of finding the right metal(s) to forge an alloy for the mithril. Instead of the crafting of the Rings of Power involving some secret art and means of imbuing these objects with power that Sauron passed on to the Elves in pretense of friendship (when his design was for them to be tools for his domination through the One Ring), the secret to the Rings ultimately comes down to alloying. What a lackluster substitute that is. But that is how far the writers’ imaginations extend, I guess. When faced with the fact that they needed to write a master smith and did not know much of anything about smithing, they did not find a way to mask their insufficient knowledge. They leaned right into it by thinking a master craftsmen thousands of years old would need to be told about the possibility of finding the right metal to alloy with mithril. Instead of Sauron actually being smarter than Celebrimbor and teaching him some art he never heard of, the writers can only make Sauron competent by making Celebrimbor incompetent.
As a further example of Halbrand’s fake competence in this field, he speaks of how, “I’ve seen a trace of nickel added to iron to make a blade lighter and stronger.” I am no expert in this field, and I don’t pretend to be one on TV, but it is silly to talk about adding a metal that makes a blade lighter. You are literally adding weight to it, so how are you making it lighter? Also, nickel is used in making stainless steel, which makes blades more resistant to corrosion, but it does not actually make blades stronger when they are, say, the length of swords or knives for combat, which is what Halbrand would most likely be referring to. But because Celebrimbor must be ignorant for this contrivance of the writers to work, he calls Halbrand’s idea an “intriguing suggestion,” which Halbrand says to call “a gift.” This is the weakest of connections to Sauron’s name among the Elves of Eregion: Annatar, Lord of Gifts. But unlike in that case, where he really was teaching the Elves arts they never knew before, here it refers simply to the fact that Halbrand can teach Celebrimbor some basics of metallurgy (even if wrongly) that he should obviously already know.
A Notable Waste
Before we leave this scene, I wanted to comment on one other thing. I was thinking around this time about what happened to Celebrimbor’s tower that he needed built with this great forge, which, according to episode 2, would be capable of producing flame “hot as a dragon’s tongue” (but not a dragon’s fire I guess). This building they are in with his workshop does not appear to be it. After all, in the introduction of Eregion, we saw a building in the background with scaffolding, which would obviously be his tower. This place is not that tower. I had thought that tower and forge were going to be necessary for making the Rings of Power somehow. But no. This is a different building. However long it was taking them to build that tower proved to be a complete waste by the end of the season. The place they are working in is implied to have been his workshop for some time, not something that was meant to be his workshop (as in future tense) or something that was his new workshop. He sure wasted a lot of time and resources on something that was unnecessary. Just like this show.
A Character That Was Going Nowhere … Ends Up Nowhere
With that, we return to Númenor. And since nothing in this episode actually corrects the most fundamental flaw in the adaptation of the Númenórean story, it is time, one last time, to give you your weekly reminder that we are eight episodes into the show and six episodes into the Númenor arc, and the writers have still not told the audience about the central conflict of the Númenóreans. We have been told nothing about their extended lifespan. We have been told nothing about why they have such antipathy to the Elves, even if it is apparently as flimsy as wet tissue paper for most of the population. I am not giving these writers the benefit of the doubt that they will bring all of this up later, but it is irrelevant anyway. That information, as crucial as it is to understanding the Númenóreans, should have been put front and center and not delayed for the sake of unfathomably less interesting filler. (The closest they get this time is Pharazôn saying that the statue of Tar-Palantir will give him the immortality in stone that he cannot attain in life, but that is far from showing us either the Númenóreans’ extended lifespans, or their envy of immortality as something that motivates their society as a whole, or their late hatred of Elves, specifically.)
What is that unfathomably less interesting filler this time? Pharazôn has brought a bunch of interns/apprentices to Tar-Palantir’s tower, each of whom is supposed to capture his visage for the statue that will be constructed in his memory. His whole introductory speech is yet another example of characters telling others what they should already know for the benefit of the audience, since I’m sure these people know why they have been summoned here. They are told they have one hour to capture his visage. Why was an architect’s apprentice brought in for this? Don’t know. Why are they not entrusting such an important task to master artists and sculptors? Don’t know. The writers apparently needed some excuse to crowbar Eärien into this scene and could not think of a better reason. She is such an unnatural fit for this story that you can tell the writers had to go out of their way to work her into it. Rather than giving us any scenes with Anárion—Isildur’s younger brother, fellow member of the Faithful, and future co-ruler of Gondor—the writers have forced in an uninteresting character to put much more focus on her. But then again, maybe I should be grateful for small mercies that I have not gotten to see the writers corrupt Anárion and other characters like Celeborn, Círdan, and Amandil.
A minor issue with this whole setup is that they have Eärien drawing a picture of Tar-Palantir looking left, meaning we are getting the right side of his face in this drawing and not his left, but she is sitting to his left and sees mostly the left side of his face. Thus, she is using the wrong point of reference for this image. She is only sitting there because it is a contrived setup for the rest of the scene, but how difficult would it have been for the makers of the show to give her a drawing that actually looks appropriate from that position? Why not just draw it correctly for the context?
A more significant issue with this whole setup is the lingering question I had. Why would they want to memorialize Tar-Palantir in this fashion? He was a king they deposed for going against the grain of the more recent turn in Númenor against the old ways. Would they not rather forget that? Would the powers that be not want people to ignore him, his message, and his legacy? Or would he not instead be a negative example to be used, not one memorialized with the highest honor? And wasn’t Pharazôn the one chiefly responsible for stripping him of power? Why is he behind this memorial effort, then? Just like with the majority of Númenóreans’ sudden change of heart to build an army of volunteers for an Elf’s purposes, this is another basic inconsistency in how Númenor is portrayed.
There is a point when Eärien uses a cloth to wipe an apparently sleeping Tar-Palantir’s face, in response to which he seizes her hand to say, “I know what you have been doing in the dark of night when you thought all eyes were asleep.” It is unclear what this is in reference to, but we see from the rest of the conversation that he thinks he is talking to Míriel. He is obviously losing his mind as the end approaches. But with the king in such poor health and being constantly in the room with strangers, you would think there would be physicians and/or attendants nearby. But there is no one in the room with them, so Eärien has to go to the stairway to yell for help. And still nobody comes because I guess nobody heard her. Within the world of the show, this makes no sense. But the writers need this setup to be just so in order for the rest of the scene to happen. Surely if there had been attendants nearby, Tar-Palantir would not have been able to open the doors to the chamber of the palantír for Eärien to go up and take a look. (His comment that he “cannot separate what is from what was, what was from what will be,” is the result of the basic change in function of the palantír from Tolkien’s work that I noted in the episode 4 review, so I will not comment on it further here.) Eärien goes up to look at the palantír and … the scene ends. Boy, her whole plotline for season 1 went nowhere. I guess anyone who is actually interested in where her story is going or in what kind of character she even is in this story will need to wait for season 2 to get anything. These writers certainly have a knack for wasting money and wasting time.
A Meeting of the Dull Minds
When we return to Eregion, Gil-galad has arrived and he confers with Elrond, Celebrimbor, and Galadriel. They bounce around ideas of what to do with making a smaller object out of an alloy of mithril. Elrond suggests a scepter, Galadriel suggests a sword (of course), and Celebrimbor suggests a crown. He insists, “A circular form will be ideal. Allowing the light to arc back upon itself in one unbroken round, building to a power that is all but unbounded.” As an explanation, this is at least something, but the problem is less with the explanation than with the fact that any explanation like it needs to be given. Again, these writers have to take a rather contorted route to get to the making of the Rings of Power because of how they disregarded what Tolkien gave them, since they could piece together the story from what is told in LOTR. But they had to go their own way through their silly mithril storyline, and so they need to justify turning it into a certain shape. Still, they never explain, even when they extend the idea to three circular objects of how this is all going to save the Elves. Why would three Elves having these mithril alloys do anything to heal the Great Tree or restore the immortality of all Elves? We will never know because no one ever explains. It is more of a case of, “Well, we should do something.” This is the last-ditch effort slapdash that the creation of the Rings of Power has become. The buildup to it that Tolkien had has been replaced with a much inferior story that is absolute nonsense in the context of his sub-creation.
Gil-galad finally has some sense for the first time in this series and rebuffs the idea that he should wear such a crown, for that is too much power for one person to have. But regardless, he finds this whole discussion irrelevant because he claims that the time is even shorter than they know, “Since the mountain of fire’s eruption, the Great Tree is all but bleeding leaves.” I have already discussed the timeline issues this kind of remark creates, so I will not dwell on it further here. But the implication is that what was a spring deadline, whatever season it actually is at this point (since it does not look like winter or even autumn), is no longer the case, “if this was to be our salvation, I’m afraid we needed it sooner.” Maybe he shouldn’t have wasted so much time not telling Elrond what he wanted from him. It literally served no good purpose to be so secretive. But then again, the show wants us to think that the greatest minds of the Elves would not have arrived at this solution if not for Halbrand coming in to tell Celebrimbor, the Elven smith who is thousands of years old and is recognized as the foremost master of his craft, the basics of alloying.
To that point, Celebrimbor’s response that he “almost had it sooner” does not make even the slightest bit of sense. He did not almost have anything. Nor did he almost have it “sooner.” He apparently would not have even thought of this particular idea without his plot-convenient ignorance being filled in by Halbrand.
Celebrimbor then describes what they could achieve in a way that serves as Galadriel’s first clue in this whole series that Halbrand could be Sauron. He says, “We are on the cusp of crafting a new kind of power. Not of strength, but of spirit. Not of the flesh, but over flesh. This is … this is a power of the Unseen world.” At this point, one must wonder what mithril can’t do. It will later be personified as if it is sentient (of course, personification of objects is a standard literary device, but with what we have been told of mithril to this point that diverges from Tolkien in so many regards, it could just as well be a statement of sentience). Its connection to the Unseen world is obviously not accurate to Tolkien’s work, particularly since the power of the Rings was not a result of the substances they were made from, but I am not sure how one can make sense of it even with the information we have been given about mithril. Why would it have or be a conduit for power of the Unseen world? The Unseen world is the spiritual realm that supervenes upon the Seen world. The Rings of Power do have a link to the Unseen world in Tolkien’s story, most dramatically exemplified by the One Ring, as the Ring’s invisibility effect is simply a result of its user entering the Unseen world. The Rings also make that which is invisible (often because it is in the Unseen world) visible. This is why Frodo sees the true forms of the Ringwraiths, who have long since slipped into the Unseen world after possessing their own Rings of Power under the corruption of Sauron with his Ring. The other Rings of Power have varying levels of ability in this regard to either make wearers become invisible or to make visible that which is invisible. Though, in the case of the bearers of the Three, this particular effect is subdued because these individuals already live in both the Seen and Unseen worlds (which, in addition to the fact that the Three were hidden from Sauron, is one reason why the bearers of the Three would not be more conspicuous to Sauron). Indeed, in the case of Maia like Gandalf and Sauron, the physical form is like raiment that they put on, as their natural form is to be invisible to the Seen world. On the other hand, because a bearer of the Ring would cross over into the Unseen world, the use of the Ring would make the bearer more conspicuous to Sauron and to his servants who also exist in the Unseen world, the Nazgûl (who otherwise cannot see as clearly by themselves in the Seen world). But what does any of this have to do with mithril? It doesn’t really and the show is not even going to try to explain. The writers just know that they need that Unseen world connection and think they need to get there via a material path, rather than by the path of secret arts or magical power being involved.
The reference to this power being, “Not of the flesh, but over flesh,” is also peculiar in how forced it is. It is here for a strictly utilitarian purpose, as this is Galadriel’s tip that Halbrand is Sauron. Adar used those words, as well as the reference to the Unseen world, to describe what Sauron was seeking in his experiments, so Galadriel is able to connect the dots for the first time. The problem is not that we do not know if Halbrand overheard those words because it actually makes more sense as a clue if he did not overhear them and thus did not deliberately evoke Adar’s description, and the connection she makes does make sense, as Halbrand has already been brought up in conversation. The problem with the line is, once again, what the description has to do with mithril. Of course mithril would not have power of the flesh, so the negative statement has no clear purpose here. Nor is it clear how it would have power over the flesh, except in the apparent sense of being able to heal the loss of immortality (though I am not sure if that is supposed to be a power exercised on their flesh or on their spirits). This description is used simply because the writers want to force a connection that will make Galadriel finally do any investigation that would lead her to the conclusion she needs, since this Elf who has specialized in searching for Sauron is too dense to figure out when Sauron is right there, even when he has not actually been lying to her. But she suspected nothing until the plot required her to.
The brief exchange after this between Galadriel and Celebrimbor represented something almost interesting. Celebrimbor cannot clearly recall whether that key description was his own words, though he thinks they are amidst his confusion. If there had been more forethought about how the Rings of Power would be made and they had stuck closer to Tolkien’s story, such things could have been sprinkled throughout the script leading up to this episode. That is, Sauron could have been disseminating and dissembling his plan, subtly bringing the various pieces together, even at times making the ideas he gave to people seem like they came from themselves. It could have shown us a cleverness to the character that we never get to see in this season of the series. Instead, we get only this one case here and it amounts to nothing but a utilitarian need for Galadriel to get a clue.
Amazon-Brand Gil-galad Takes His Leave of This Season
We then have a scene where Elrond asks Gil-galad to give him and his fellows here three months. I am not sure why Elrond thinks Gil-galad has three months to give, since the timeline is not exactly up to him. Does he forget that there is a tree behind all of this mess? I guess he did because he never tried to see if putting the mithril next to the blight could help it. And since time and space have collapsed to serve the needs of the script (where a trip that could take 7 to 9 weeks), and we have no idea how long the construction of the tower was taking, I have no idea how long they were supposed to have before the supposed spring deadline. It is almost as if the writers have deliberately kept the audience in the dark about how much time has elapsed and thus how urgent the situation should be. Frankly, if we were going by how long such trips would take according to LOTR, we should be well past the point of the deadline. Since Celebrimbor said he needed the tower completed by the spring in episode 2, the setting is supposed to be a time other than spring, which gives us around 9 months to work with. Considering how long trips between Lindon and Eregion or Khazad-dûm would take, considering that Elrond has taken that trip three times now (21–27 weeks), considering that Gil-galad has made the trip himself in what should have been the same amount of time has a typical trip rather than a week or so (thus adding another 7–9 weeks, giving us 28–36 weeks total), and considering that we have all the construction to account for somewhere in this timeline, as it took place between Elrond’s first and second aforementioned trips, plus the initial trip to and from Khazad-dûm, we should already be past the 9-month mark. But time and space bend to the will of the script’s needs, so Elrond somehow thinks he has three more months to work with (though we will come back to this later).
Gil-galad tells Elrond to give up because, “It is a fool’s hope, Elrond. Merely that. Nothing more.” Elrond responds by quoting Gil-galad’s line from episode 5 about hope back to him. The writers thought this was a clever callback, when it is clearly as contrived as many other things in this script. The “merely” aspect of the line is thrown in to leave an opening just for the callback. Otherwise, a fool’s hope would presumably be different from a simple mere/meager hope. That is, while the latter has a small chance of coming about, the former is entirely misdirected. And I would agree it is a fool’s hope if for no other reason than that they have no idea how this project is supposed to work to help the Elves keep their immortality. Nor do they ever say.
It is also remarkable that the draw of the Rings in helping to preserve that which one loved has been corrupted in this story into helping the Elves to (somehow) keep their immortality that is arbitrarily being taken away from them (they never explain how that tree cancer actually emerged and what circumstances caused it; it is just from evil). In other words, they are not preserving external things they love, like in Tolkien’s work, they are preserving themselves, I guess because the Elves in this show love nothing more than themselves. Such a motivation makes sense for the Men who were corrupted by their Rings because they would want to preserve their power and their mortal lives, and thereby they became ensnared by Sauron. But this motivation does not make sense for Tolkien’s Elves, not least because Tolkien’s Elves would have never faced a problem that would cause them to lose their inherent immortality. They would seek to preserve external things because their lives were inherently tied to the world. Their ties to the life of this world, rather than a fate beyond the world like Men have, is also why they become re-embodied after a time. Are we supposed to think that the re-embodying would stop too? If not, that undermines the significance of this whole issue a bit, doesn’t it? Of course, the writers have not mentioned this respawning mechanic because it would raise questions they are not prepared to answer, such as: Why would Galadriel be so hellbent on her quest for vengeance when her brother is actually alive again back in the Undying Lands? That would also provide her powerful motivation to go to the Undying Lands, whereas we have been given no reason of particular attraction to her of why she would want to return there (in the opening episode, we did not even see any positive experiences she had in the Undying Lands, except for her interaction with her brother), but her thirst for vengeance must instead drive her to go on her silly quest. Nothing about this makes sense as an adaptation of Tolkien. What the writers have put in place of what Tolkien wrote has not made this story better adapted to the medium of television; it has simply made the story worse.
The Rogue Cop Returns
When we are back in the forge, we see Celebrimbor and Halbrand getting on with the work. What is Galadriel doing? She is standing over at the side glaring at Halbrand. Subtle. She apparently could not have thought of something more useful to do but stand there in her new dress (which I guess she got out of Celebrimbor’s wardrobe) and try to stare holes through Halbrand. But we have already established that Amazon Galadriel has all the subtlety of a bull at a rodeo.
In her next scene, she speaks with a loremaster who looks more like a Vulcan than an Elf. She tells him, “I need royal lineages, bloodlines. Anything you can find on the Southlands.” Naturally, an Elven city is probably not going to have much on the subject, as the loremaster himself says. It is a real shame that she did not have a single thought to do this same kind of investigation in Númenor, a kingdom of Men, with an archivist that had superhuman recall. Surely they would have had the information she needed, since that is where she discovered what his pendant signified. But only now, ONLY NOW does she think to ask the obvious questions. She was perfectly happy to install him as a king of the Southlands despite asking none of the relevant questions simply because he was a tool, a means to her ends. The Vulcan tells her that they don’t have much information on the Southlands, but you better believe they will happen to have exactly what she needs.
Of course, this line reminds us that this episode shows precisely zero concern for the Southlanders. They just kind of disappeared after the end of the last episode. No one cares about them anymore because they are not useful to Amazon Galadriel’s ends. You would think they would have some things to work through after what happened in the last two episodes. But this episode is dedicated to some clumsy Númenórean wrap-up (secondarily), to the exile of Nori, and to last-minute slapdash shoehorning of the things the show is named after. In such a context, who would care about the Southlanders? (Not that we have been given any strong connection with them anyway.)
Yet More Odd Conversation
Galadriel then hides when she hears someone coming, whereby she overhears Celebrimbor say, “Three weeks for a labor that could take three centuries.” Elrond responds, “Constraint can be the very progenitor of invention.” Celebrimbor’s line is meant to tell us that Gil-galad gave Elrond three weeks rather than three months. Again, even three weeks would not make sense with a more realistic timeline, but whatever, we are past that point already. Given the latter half of Celebrimbor’s remark, three months would not have made much difference, but it also makes Celebrimbor’s comment that he “almost had it sooner” even more nonsensical. If he really thought the labor could take three centuries, then he has to know it is not a realistic solution and he was no closer to having it in time within this day. If it is not going to take three centuries, as we will see it does not, why did he overestimate so horribly? Is he not supposed to be a master smith, possibly the greatest smith since Fëanor? How in the world did he mistake something that could actually be accomplished in three weeks for something that would take three centuries to do? Even the lowest-end carpenter would not make such an error in time estimation because they would never get work with such poor judgment. There is nothing special about the process of making the Rings that would indicate why it would take three centuries, nor is there some revolutionary insight or shortcut that cuts down a three-century timeline to one that is finished easily within three weeks. Now, Tolkien’s Rings of Power did take some significant time to forge, as this was not a purely material process. The Elven smiths with Sauron’s (undercover) help began forging the Rings ca. 1500 and we are told that the Three were completed in ca. 1590, while the One Ring was forged ca. 1600. Obviously, the Rings are not taking the full 90 years to complete, but they are taking some number of years. Even if we assumed the most extreme case and ignored the “circa” to these dates, we would get Celebrimbor beginning his work on the Three at the same time the other Rings of Power are made, and he simply finished them soon after the other Rings so that they all took 90 years within this scenario. That is still nowhere close to 300 years, and it is not even closer to 300 years than it is to three weeks.
As for Elrond’s statement, it is completely unnecessary and unhelpful. The mere fact of constraint (though the proverb typically references “necessity”) doesn’t bend space and time, except in the minds of the writers who are used to making time and space bend to the needs of the script. If you told the builders of the Burj Khalifa that they had six days to build the tower instead of almost six years, it is not as if that would have forced them to be inventive enough to make the tower of the same size and quality in the absurd amount of time. Of course, such a statement does not actually help anything, just like Elrond does not actually help anything in the entire forging process. He is just there because the script decrees that he needs to be there.
After they pass on, Halbrand calls out to Galadriel to say that she does not need to be afraid to come out. He has a brief conversation with her that just reflects on how he got here. The real simp energy in this scene comes from when he says he owes Galadriel because she believed in him, saw strength in him, and pushed him to heights that no one else could have. And to think, she did all of this for someone about whom she was deluded because she put no effort into finding out who he really is. She did not care about his past, not because it did not actually matter, but because it did not serve her purposes to care. She did not need to know if he even was the rightful king of the Southlands because all she needed was a pendant to motivate her designs. She did not concern herself with his interests, his goals, his wishes, or with who he is as he is because these things did not matter to her or stood in the way of her goals, so she disregarded them. But Halbrand interprets all of this as making him better and he says that he will never forget what she has done for him, “and see to it that no one else does either.” From his perspective, I have no idea why he added that last line in an overly sinister tone. But the script writers are not thinking about this from his perspective; they are thinking about what their script needs, and their script needs more heavy-handed hints that he is Sauron before he is ultimately revealed to be Sauron.
Asteroid Man=Off-Brandalf
With that, we return back to the person the script wants us to pretend for now could be Sauron: Asteroid Man. Of course, the only reason the cultists have for believing that Asteroid Man is Sauron is his being “cast down” through crashing into the earth in an asteroid. In our world with our stories of fallen angels and such, one could see some cultists making that connection. We have seen no such framework in this world; we simply need to assume it for the sake of the show. This is despite the fact that Sauron never left the earth to this point once he entered it, nor is there any story that says something to that effect.
The cultists also tell Asteroid Man that the stars he has been looking for are a constellation called the Hermit’s Hat, which one of the cultists shows on the big dinner plate she carries around (for some reason). This is a contrived connection to Gandalf’s famous hat, and we will see more contrived Gandalf connections in addition to what they have shown thus far (particularly drawing on Peter Jackson’s films, even though this series is supposedly independent of them). The cultists claim that this pattern of stars is visible in only one place, “Far to the east, where the stars are strange. The lands of Rhûn.” Now, the writers have not explained that Arda is still flat at this point in the Second Age (it was not until his later notes, preserved in Morgoth’s Ring, that Tolkien tried to think of how to revise the story so that Arda was not originally flat, but he never integrated such an idea with the rest of story, as this would be rather extensive work). Perhaps they thought this line would make sense with a flat earth, but they have not set up the framework for that line to make sense. And even in a flat world, it is not clear how a constellation can only be visible in one place on the planet. On our planet, stars like Polaris may not be visible at latitudes far enough south, but that is different from saying that a star can only be seen in one place.
In any case, they insist that in Rhûn this one they call Sauron will learn to control his powers. Why would Sauron need to learn from these apparently human cultists how to control his powers? Don’t know. Such an idea only exists to vainly explain how the cultists could continue deluding themselves about Asteroid Man being Sauron. I mean, Eminem is already clearly a powerful mage, powerful enough that she can subdue Asteroid Man. One wonders, then, why they would even need him. It seems like she is capable enough on her own, at least until the script decides she needs to drop her staff and never pick it up again just because she is getting pelted in the head with pebbles.
By this point, the ragtag group of Harfoots has arrived and they put an ill-conceived plan into motion to sneak up on the cultists. The plot forces them to get into this situation of trying to distract the other two cultists while they try to free what looks like Asteroid Man, since the whole routine of tying his arms up was done purely for the benefit of the Harfoots the cultists do not know are there yet (one of them hears something but does not know that noise is people coming to save Asteroid Man). You see, the cultists are setting their own trap for the Harfoots when they come to rescue Asteroid Man, at which point we see why the show featured that contrived setup of Eminem being able to shapeshift, so that we know she could take the form of Asteroid Man. Of course, one wonders why the Harfoots rushed into this, the only explanation for which Nori gives is that it is easier to take on two than three, since they do not know where the third, most powerful one is (they know this other one is the one who burned all of their stuff with her magic). From their perspective, that statement makes as much sense as saying, “well, two dragons are better than three.” But if the Harfoots thought much about this whole scenario, the plot would not be able to happen as it does.
Once the cultists spring their trap on the Harfoots, Nori slowly runs away while Sadoc hugs Eminem’s leg (and she can apparently do nothing about it despite her amazing powers). One of the other cultists then throws a knife that hits Sadoc somewhere around the gut. This attack will be enough to mortally wound him but not enough to take him out of the fight altogether, as we will see soon. As for now, everything is going belly-up for the Harfoots (or as they said in episode 2 “three rabbits to the moon”) and their ill-conceived plan. But when the cultists threaten Nori, Asteroid Man gets his plot-convenient power boost and starts bending the elements for his Wizard Blast attack. Eminem is the only one able to resist him, which once again makes me wonder why they need Asteroid Man. She will do things to him that are obviously evoking the Wizards’ duel from Jackson’s FOTR, except the things Gandalf and Saruman did to each other made sense from a combat perspective, whereas Eminem does something where she has Off-Brandalf suspended in the air and pointlessly turns him 180° before throwing him.
Elsewhere in this fight, we find out that Sadoc is still in fighting shape as he ambushes one of the cultists. He comes out from cover and stabs her with the knife from his gut. Now, if you are Sadoc in this situation, with surprise on your side, what should you do? A) Emerge quietly and suddenly from cover to stab the cultist in the most damaging place you can manage while maintaining the advantage of surprise. B) Emerge quietly and suddenly from cover to stab the cultist in the thigh, knee, or calf to do some serious and debilitating damage to someone who is trying to kill you and your friends. C) Let out a distracting noise, then emerge from cover, then stab the cultist in the foot. If you chose C), I am guessing you helped write this show because that is exactly what Sadoc does. This is just like when Bronwyn had to act in stealth, and she instead decided to scream out and stab an Orc in the foot. I guess the actors are instructed to do this to go for the areas that will produce the least blood that they would show on screen. Fake blood costs money, after all, and they already blew through the budget for CGI blood on that uncomfortably extended sequence in episode 6 when the Orc is leaking blood out of his eye onto Arondir’s face for almost a minute. They need to pinch those pennies on the most expensive show ever made.
Eminem then drops her staff as she is doing her magic thing simply because the Harfoots are throwing pebbles at her head. She never picks it up again, like you would expect if this item is so important, but it turns out she does not really need it, since she is able to conjure fire with her bare hands. This makes Nori’s next action inexplicable. She picks up the staff and tries to give it to Asteroid Man so that he can help the Harfoots. Since Eminem seems to be doing just fine without it, why would she conclude that the staff matters that much or that it would be that helpful to Asteroid Man? Well, you see, Nori read ahead in the script and knew that the resolution to this action scene would feature Asteroid Man using the staff, and so here she is giving it to him.
Asteroid Man initially refuses to do what Nori wants because he is busy feeling sorry for himself, as he is buying into the idea that he is the evil guy they have been searching for, that they “showed me what I am.” Of course, the Harfoots, including Nori herself, did nothing to help this and they actively made him feel like he was evil with how they interacted with him in the last episode. But now the script wants Nori to say, “Only you can show what you are. You choose by what you do. You’re here to help. I know it.” I did not edit this line in any way, it really is that clunky. She could have said, “You show what you are by what you do.” That would be a bit too reminiscent of lines that have been said many times elsewhere, but it would at least be clear. The sentence “You choose by what you do,” is remarkably incomplete, when they meant something more like, “You choose what you will be by what you do.” But she did not mention choice in the first line, so its incomplete integration into this stream of consciousness just makes the line all the clunkier. Then she completely contradicts this idea by saying not that he can choose, but that she knows what he is because he is here to help. Between all of this and Off-Brandalf’s line where he says who he is by just saying, “I’m good,” it is less like this whole plotline resembles anything Tolkien wrote (I know, that is incomprehensibly surprising with how faithful this show has otherwise been) and more like we are dealing with a dollar store knock-off of The Iron Giant. Seriously, we even have a largely inarticulate super-powered giant character, a kid who is his closest friend, and even rip-off versions of the key lines, “You are what you choose to be” and the Giant’s famous “Superman” to signify what he is choosing to be as he takes the blast of a nuclear weapon to save his friend.
Anyway, Off-Brandalf takes the staff, extinguishes the fires, and starts intimidating the cultists (apparently, Eminem can no longer do anything in this situation despite her powers not being dependent on the staff). He even kind of foreshadows Gandalf’s line with the Balrog, “From the Shadow you came. To the Shadow I bid you return.” It is only now, ONLY NOW that the cultists come to the realization that he is not Sauron. The say, “He is the other. The Istar. He is …” to which he responds, “I’m good.” I’ve already mentioned that this last line is reminiscent of the fact that this whole story seems more like a bad version of The Iron Giant. As for the rest there are no Istari (Wizards) in Middle-earth at this point in the Second Age, at least not if you go by LOTR, which is all that these writers had the legal rights to. Gandalf and the other four of his fellow Istari did not arrive in Middle-earth until around 1000 in the Third Age. In a later idea Tolkien had in a text that the writers do not have the rights to, two Wizards (once known as the Blue Wizards Alatar and Pallando) were said to come to Middle-earth at the same time as Glorfindel (possibly as early as SA 1200, but more likely closer to SA 1600, when Sauron completed the One Ring). They were named Morinehtar (Darkness-slayer) and Rómestámo (East-helper):
Their task was to circumvent Sauron: to bring help to the few tribes of Men that had rebelled from Melkor-worship, to stir up rebellion … and after his first fall to search out his hiding (in which they failed) and to cause [?dissension and disarray][sic.] among the dark East … They must have had very great influence on the history of the Second Age and Third Age in weakening and disarraying the forces of East … who would both in the Second and Third Age otherwise have … outnumbered the West. (The Peoples of Middle-earth, 385)
Obviously, in neither storyline do any of the Istari arrive by asteroid. In the case of the two Wizards who go east, the key difference, besides their manner of arriving in Middle-earth, is that there are two of them. It is especially baffling that the Valar would send any Istar to Middle-earth in such a state that they are initially inarticulate, are essentially overgrown babies, and forget basic communication, who they are, where they are from, what their mission is, and how to control their powers. It is almost as if all of these things were contrived by the writers for the sake of maintaining a mystery box rather than for the sake of anything that would make sense within the world of the story. But it is not as if this show has dozens upon dozens of examples of that very quality of contrivance, right?
Off-Brandalf then does … something to destroy the cultists. Seriously, it is confusing. First, he causes them to appear like they were female Nazgûl before the Rings ever existed. Eminem is even wearing a crown in this wraith form, despite wearing no crown in her regular form. Second, he causes them to … turn into wraith moths. Why? Don’t know. I guess the writers thought moths would work because Gandalf talks to moths in Peter Jackson’s films. But why not just have them disintegrate instead of turning into moths? Are we supposed to think that the moths Gandalf speaks to, which are a Jackson invention, are all witches? Or are they just enslaved to his will now? Is this supposed to explain why these non-Tolkien entities have the ability to call upon Eagles? Who knows? I doubt the writers do (though they may take notes from a fan theorist sometime). Third, the staff then disintegrates … for some reason. Why? Don’t know. The writers don’t care.
We then see why Sadoc was the only male to come along for this trip. The writers wanted someone to die, and they were not about to kill off any of the womenfolk. I can understand if Lenny Henry wanted out of this show by the end of the first season, but it is unclear within the context of the story why he needs to die. They literally have a Wizard right there who has shown the ability to heal, but no one even thinks of such an idea. I guess Sadoc is tired of life and would rather die now to rejoin his wife than grow old to eventually be left behind by his fellow Harfoots (and not even be memorialized properly, as there will be no proper memorial for him by the end of this episode). Instead, he just wants to sit and watch the sun come up. And I guess this scene reveals that Sadoc has sun-summoning powers because this line is followed by the fastest sunrise ever.
Farewell to Amazon’s Númenórean Theme Park
But enough of that. We need to end the Númenórean story for the first season on a flat note. To that end, we are put out on the sea with Valandil slowly walking across the ship where he says and does nothing. He is just part of the establishing shot as the scene moves below deck to where blind Míriel is counting steps from the stairs to the post. Elendil tries to compliment her on the progress she is making, to which she claps back, “Patronize me like that again, Captain, I will have your ship.” I wonder if this version of Míriel has always been like this, or if she had been hanging out with Amazon Galadriel for too long. It’s not necessarily patronizing to acknowledge progress that has been made. Though, one might expect she had made better progress in the weeks it should take to travel to Númenor. But of course, the massive distance between Númenor and Middle-earth has either been contracted or the boats are supposed to be super-fast, based on what we have seen from the previous voyage.
But after this unnecessarily hostile response, Míriel tries to be kinder in saying that she would understand if Elendil wanted to take a leave of duty when they get back to Númenor. Elendil does not say “yes” or “no” to the implied question because the writers wish to continue demonstrating that they do not know how conversations work. Instead, this is his response immediately after her statement:
You once asked me why I pulled Galadriel from the sea. I claimed to have had little choice. But the truth is, I could have left her there. Could’ve refused to follow her to Middle-earth. Or stopped my son from doing so. Yet at every turn, I made the choices I did because … Because “Elendil” does not merely mean “one who loves the stars.” I just never imagined it would lead here.
Oi vey. You could have just said you were not taking a leave of duty and, if she asked why, you could have given this as an answer. But it would not have even served particularly well for that. I guess this is a change from episode 3, where he attributed his extraction of Galadriel to the sea, and “the sea is always right.” But now he is taking ownership of the decision. Yet he expresses his reasoning rather clunkily. He attributes everything he did for her benefit, whether extracting her from the sea, following her to Middle-earth, or bringing his son along for the expedition, to the meaning of his name: “Elf-friend.” He does not directly say it is because he is an Elf-friend, that he is one of the Faithful (Tolkien’s Elendil was actually one of the leaders of the Faithful, second only to his father Amandil). You see, that would have made sense, and we can’t have that in this dialogue. Instead, he has to say he did what he did because he thinks the name he was given required him to do so. I suppose a clunky admission from the writers that Elendil is one of the Faithful is better than nothing, but one also must wonder how to square it with other aspects of his portrayal that I noted particularly in the episode 3 and episode 5 reviews. Why does he act like average Númenóreans, most of whom were not one of the Faithful, have done more in fidelity to Númenor than his own son? Why was he more willing to turn his back on Amazon Galadriel than Míriel, even though her name does not mean “Elf-friend”? Why is it that, though fidelity is perhaps his central characteristic, we have not really seen it? Why did we get that exchange in episode 3 where Elendil said “the past is dead” and that he and his family needed to move forward or die with it, even though that is exactly the opposite of anything a leader of the Faithful would say? Why did he have such an antipathy to going to western Númenor, the ancient home of his family and where the Númenóreans once maintained contact with the Elves of the Undying Lands? Why did he have some falling out with Anárion over such subjects? Who knows? I doubt the writers do. If only they did not try to abuse Tolkien’s character down to his very essence to fit him into this story in a role he does not belong in, or, better, if only they reshaped the story into something he would be a better fit in.
Míriel responds to this by saying, “My father once told me that the way of the Faithful is committing to pay the price, even if the cost cannot be known. And trusting that, in the end, it will be worth it.” That’s not really what the way of the Faithful is about. She says nothing of what the Faithful are actually committed to, particularly Eru Ilúvatar (or the One) and his Valar, and that this is what upholds the bond of love they have with the Elves, the fellow Children of Ilúvatar (this comes through most vividly in The Silmarillion, but you do not need to rely on it for such, and we have seen already that the writers make references to things outside of LOTR without visually adapting them). Thus, the way of the Faithful is not defined by just going along with whatever and paying whatever price. Notice that she does not say even what the price is for. Faithfulness needs an object, a recipient that defines its direction and content. Otherwise, all we are left with is the notion that the Faithful, like the Joker, just do things, and hope everything works out. Because the writers have strangely and steadfastly refused to define the Númenóreans or their central conflict (and thus why the different groups think and act as they do), we are left with phrases that are supposed to sound vaguely profound and semi-religious, but which ultimately lack content and context to give them any force not supplied by the viewer doing the writers’ job for them.
Just as this exchange between Míriel and Elendil has fallen flat, so too does the ending of Númenor’s story for this season. We end with this ship returning to Númenor to see all the black flags hoisted to signify that Tar-Palantir is dead. Naturally, Míriel cannot see the flags, but unnaturally, she asks what is wrong even though no one has made any audible reactions. We cut away before Elendil tells her what we already know. That is not so much the problem, but it could have worked if Elendil whispered to Míriel and we could have seen her reaction to her father dying. Instead, that moment is completely cut off by the writers for no apparent reason. Whose reaction in place of his daughter’s do we see to Tar-Palantir’s death? Pharazôn, who is looking sad for some reason. I know this is his uncle, but let us remember that he is the one who deposed the king, thereby backstabbing his own uncle, because he represented the opposite of what Pharazôn and so many others in Númenor wanted. I am not sure why we are supposed to think he had any special care for him. But that is the last we see of Númenor this season. What a waste of potential that whole storyline was. It is perhaps the most wasteful in the whole show, considering most of Tolkien’s writings about the Second Age concerned Númenor.
Silly Revelations
The showrunners put a rather odd transition here, as we move from the tower where Tar-Palantir died to Celebrimbor’s (not new) tower, where there is an explosion. With this following immediately upon the last tower scene with a completely different tone, it is rather jarring for the next tower we see to explode. Those who are not paying close attention, might think for a second that the king’s chamber has been bombed. But no, we are back in the forge, and despite the explosion knocking out the windows and such, everyone inside is completely fine with no injuries to show for it. What caused the explosion? According to Celebrimbor, “The mithril is proud. It refuses every effort to bond it with lesser ores.” Elrond follows up with, “Tapping into the powers of the Seen and Unseen World seemed to soften the boundaries between the two.” Yeah, none of that explains the explosion. There is no reason why mithril not bonding with another ore would cause an explosion. And the description of the mithril being “proud” makes mithril seem almost sentient. Nor is it clear why, except for the characters’ sheer insistence that is so, why the mithril would in any way tap into the powers of the Seen and Unseen world. Elrond’s line in particular is, in continuation of a trend for him, unhelpful, not only as an explanation, but as saying anything meaningful. Of course trying to tap into powers of the Unseen world from the Seen world will soften the boundary between the two because you are working to cross the boundary between them. Did the writers feel like he just needed to say something?
I am inclined to think that is the explanation for his unhelpful line because we see Galadriel also feel the need to say something. In her case, she suggests this has been enough for the day because “we have been pushing ourselves too hard.” Excuse me, but who is this “we”? We have not seen her do anything to participate in the work of forging. She has just been standing over there. When she has been in the forge, she has just glared at Halbrand. Of course, this thing that she has said happens to be the “Eureka!” moment they needed, as Halbrand says they are using too much force. Once again, Celebrimbor, the master smith, possibly the greatest Elven smith since Fëanor, does not come to this realization until Halbrand tells him. He then talks about drawing or coaxing together the mithril with some other ore. It will turn out what he means by this is just tossing the mithril into a molten mix. Why did he not think of that before? Don’t know. It is almost as if he needs to be incompetent for this story to proceed as it does and take up the time that it does. In any case, it is at this dramatically convenient time that the Vulcan loremaster comes in with what Galadriel requested, which naturally raises Halbrand’s suspicions. It is because of this that Galadriel will finally realize her mistake of not seeking any actual proof that Halbrand is the King of the Southlands, as well as not taking Halbrand’s word for how he got the pendant. Maybe if she actually listened to other people and did not just see them as means to her ends, she could have figured this out sooner.
While she is off by herself figuring this out, Halbrand comes in to say they have come up with a new solution. Apparently the mithril contains too much power for one object, so they are going to be making two. He says they will not be crowns, but something smaller. At least he stopped short of saying the type of object rhymes with “sing.” Again, because of how the writers have changed so much about the forging of the Rings, we need to take the long way around to getting to the conclusion of Three Rings for the Elves. What about the other Rings of Power? We’ll talk about that later.
Sauron’s Big Reveal and the Culmination of ROP’s Failure: Introduction
For now, we need to talk about the most important and worst reveal in the entire series, for it is the culmination of this show’s failure as a story and as an adaptation. Get comfortable, people. This is going to take a while. I have never meant that more extremely in the course of this series than I do now. It all starts with Galadriel telling Halbrand to tell her who he really is and throwing the scroll she has been reading down at his feet. She says, “There is no King of the Southlands. The line was broken. The last man to bear your crest died over a thousand years ago. He had no heir.” It sure is convenient for the purposes of this plot that she did not come across such information in Númenor where she first found out about the pendant. One wonders what kind of document she could come across that would tell her about the meaning of the pendant, but not the fact that the line of the King of the Southlands is no more, that the last king had no heir. It is also convenient that all the Southlanders forgot that bit of information about their last king. They were apparently “promised” another king and managed to keep this hope alive for 1,000 years or so, but we never know who they were “promised” by, and I don’t know that the writers care. But why do none of the Southlanders happen to remember that the last king had no heir? Why would they remember one thing and absolutely no one remembered the other? It is almost as if this whole idea was devised simply as a plot device, designed to be cast aside as blithely as that scroll is.
Of course, Halbrand is a long conversation away from explicitly saying he is Sauron, but if that whole “King of the Southlands” bit was anything other than utilitarian for the writers, this could have been an opportunity for him to try to maintain a deception. He could have said something about how the king had an illegitimate child and he is the end of that line. He could have said something to the effect of how he was a smith who sought to be a king for his people. He could have said something about the promise for the Southlanders and how he might fulfill it. But he is not interested in deception here. In fact, Sauron, a character known for his deceit, has been rather forthright with Galadriel. As he says, “I told you I found it on a dead man.” In fact, he only ever played the King of the Southlands to go along with her goals. The fact that Galadriel does not realize that all of this in here fault in the following dialogue is truly baffling:
“On the raft you saved me.”
“On the raft you saved me.”
“You convinced Míriel to save the Men of Middle-earth.”
“You convinced her. I wanted to remain in Númenor.”
“You fought beside me.”
“Against your enemy. And mine.”
Of course, the first part of this exchange does not make sense, as Galadriel did not save Halbrand in any way. The only way he was saved on that raft was by the Númenóreans. And I am having a difficult time reckoning with the idea that Galadriel actually thought Halbrand was at all the active party in convincing Míriel when that was obviously her mission after she found what she wanted at the hall of lore. And this creates an obvious disconnect with the viewer because we saw her being incessantly insistent about bringing the Númenóreans to Middle-earth in episode 4 and then see her continue her efforts to completion in episode 5. Meanwhile, Halbrand’s repeated insistence for his entire time in Númenor was to be left alone. It’s not his fault she did not listen to him every single time. This just makes her look obtuse and unaware of anything she is doing, which are hardly endearing characteristics for a character who acts as she has acted. The final bit of the exchange paves the way for how fundamentally the series has changed Sauron, and we will get to that.
All of this prompts Galadriel to ask Sauron his name, which he does not give right away, but makes pretty clear that he is Sauron by how long he says he has been alive (since before the breaking of the first silence). Of course, that is all Galadriel really needs to confirm that she is in the presence of her nemesis she has been hunting for over 1,000 years. She now finally has her chance to reap the whirlwind of vengeance upon him, assuming she is even capable of doing such. She has literally waited most of her life for this kill. And what does she, the seemingly ultimate Elven warrior, do? She uses one of the most easily block-able attacks with her backhanded stab attempt and then tries nothing else. When he blocks that horrible first strike, she acts as if she is suddenly thinking, “Oh no, I’m a small woman fighting against a man a foot taller than me, I’m no longer acting like a master warrior, and I am completely helpless.” She could not even use any basic techniques one can learn in a self-defense class. She tried one terrible attack, it was horrifically ineffective for a moment she has been anticipating for so long, she tried nothing else, and now she is done for the time being. What was the point of hyping up what a legendary warrior Amazon Galadriel is if she is stopped this easily in the most important attack in her life?
Sauron’s Big Reveal and the Culmination of ROP’s Failure: How Did We Get Here?
But the writers don’t want us to think about that. Nor do they want us to actually think about how we got here with Sauron. Because if we did, we would realize how much they ruined this adaptation of Tolkien’s villain and his story. So let’s get started, because there is so much to unpack about this sequence and about what has led up to it. First, though, I must admit my own failure here, as I gave the writers too much credit. I said in my episode 3 review when I first addressed the speculation that Halbrand is Sauron:
I am not saying either of these characters [Adar or Halbrand] needs to be Sauron, as neither of these names were ever attached to Sauron or an alter ego of his, but I would say that Halbrand seems more reasonable as a red herring, given how convenient everything about his story is and the fact that he is apparently skilled in forging things, which I think people have tried to squeeze too much inference out of. But let’s say it does turn out to be the case that Halbrand is Sauron in disguise. I must ask: to what end? If he did all this just to set a trap for Galadriel, that would require a boatload of convenience. He would need to know that she would be on a ship to Valinor, that she would abandon it at the last possible moment, that in the vast Sundering Seas she would be in the path of a makeshift raft made from the remains of a ship that he was on, which he would need to know would be in the right area of the vast Sundering Seas in the first place, and that they would be picked up by Númenóreans. And if his purpose is to kill her, why go through all of this? If he wants her dead, the sea would have taken care of that if he did not intervene. I will say, though, that if it turned out that Halbrand is Sauron, if for no other reason than that there is no Halbrand or equivalent in Tolkien’s stories, this would be the peak demonstration of how contrived the writing is. It would also be the peak demonstration of how little insight into people Galadriel has. That she would be traveling with the enemy she has been pursuing for an absurdly long time, not realizing that her enemy is right under her nose, so to speak, would do more to show what a dolt Amazon Galadriel is compared to Tolkien’s Galadriel. Also, the idea that she attributes their meeting to a greater power would ultimately be undermined in a most hilarious demonstration of her incompetence. Or it would be hilarious if it did not turn out that she caused such an incomprehensible scale of suffering by helping him like she has. But again, this is all assuming that one buys the theory that Halbrand is Sauron. I am not convinced, but I would not put it past these writers either.
Rather than edit this or any of my other statements (all of which I initially wrote within the week after the respective episodes), and pretend I never doubted this idea, I wanted it to be on the record that I was wrong when I gave the showrunners the slightest benefit of the doubt. I thought this twist was so brain-deadening that I figured the writers were trying to set up some kind of swerve, that this threshold is the one they would not cross. How dumb they made me look for giving them any credit. Of course, it was not that I was shocked, chagrined, mortified, or stupefied by this reveal. The setups were so obvious for hack writers on the one hand, and so stupid as to seemingly rule out that any writer would think these were functional anticipations of the twist on the other hand, that I essentially psyched myself out of thinking they would actually cross that line of saying Halbrand was Sauron all along. But not only did they plumb unprecedented depths of disappointment when they crossed this line; they managed to go even further when we realize what the showrunners are trying to say turned Sauron evil and caused untold suffering throughout the Second and Third Ages of Middle-earth. But trust me, we will get to all of that. We will thoroughly dissect this whole revelation sequence, but before that, we need to talk about Sauron’s supposed plan to get to this point and how much contrivance it relies on. I say, “supposed” because nothing in the series actually makes sense of the sequence of events being a plan on Sauron’s part. But defenders of the show are acting like it is.
In Tolkien’s story, Sauron, under the guise of Annatar (“Lord of Gifts”), working his way into the trust of Celebrimbor and the other smiths of Eregion was subtle work, involving giving them much knowledge before the Rings of Power ever came to be, but his underlying plan was ultimately a straightforward plan of domination by the crafting of the Rings that would be subordinate to his One Ring. He it was who first presented the idea of forging the Rings of Power to these smiths, he taught them the art of this ring-making, and he would have a direct hand in crafting the Seven and the Nine (which went to leaders of Dwarves and Men respectively, though other versions of the story beyond LOTR indicate that Sauron initially intended them for the Elves). As I said before, the attraction of these Rings was primarily by way of desire to preserve that which was loved, though they also had functions of amplifying one’s powers (particularly in terms of perception), including to some extent helping to make visible that which was invisible visible, thereby helping one to interact with both the Seen and the Unseen worlds. Through those Rings of Power and their magical link in Sauron’s participation in making them, Sauron sought to exercise domination by what he poured of himself into the One Ring that he made after these were crafted, and by which the Elves learned of his treachery. Of course, Celebrimbor would take the knowledge he learned from Sauron and craft the Great Rings/the Three Rings of the Elves by himself. Thus, they had some connection to the One Ring, being products of the same art derived from the same source, but Sauron never exercised mastery over them the way he intended because he had no part in their making and they would remain hidden from him. Of course, the Nine made those who would become the Nazgûl/Ringwraiths slaves to Sauron’s will, and gave them a continuing existence, eventually as wraiths, in exchange for being forever bound to Sauron. (The Seven did not work in this fashion not because the design of the Rings was flawed, but because Sauron’s understanding of the Dwarves was flawed, and their wills could not be dominated in this fashion.) There are details to fill in, of course, but Sauron’s plan is easy to understand, and he took clear steps to enact it. This is a stark contrast to Amazon’s version of Sauron.
Let us talk about Amazon Sauron’s participation in making the Rings of Power and the fact that it is clearly the result of a complete lack of an actual plan that makes any sense (in contradistinction to the Sauron who spent centuries planning the forging of the Rings and his One Ring), which would not have come to pass without contrivance upon contrivance. In fact, let us count the contrivances. One, whether Adar actually killed him or whether he had some resurrection, he managed to sneak aboard a ship fleeing the Southlands, which is just the right ship that would get attacked in just the right place at just the right time that he would be able to make it on just the right raft to encounter Galadriel at just the right place at just the right time, and then survive another attack from the Worm that decides to spare just the right characters for no other reason than plot convenience. Without Galadriel and her survival, nothing else in this set of circumstances could have possibly led him to this point. We also never learn where he was trying to go or what he planned to do if the contrivance did not work out because that is unimportant to the writers. Everything worked out exactly as it needed to for the plot to get where it goes.
Two, in the vast Sundering Seas, Galadriel needed to be in just the right path at just the right time for the makeshift raft to encounter. This could easily have been thwarted by the overwhelming improbability of it happening, but also by Galadriel staying on the boat (particularly in order to catch a boat back to Middle-earth) or thinking to jump off of it at any time before the last possible moment. But fortunately for Amazon Sauron, everything worked out exactly as it needed to for the plot to get where it goes.
Three, he would need Galadriel to notice the pendant he wears and be so curious about it that she will not let the mystery of it go. If she never saw it or was never particularly curious about it, she would have had no reason to try to twist his arm into going to the Southlands with her. But everything worked out exactly as it needed to for the plot to get where it goes.
Four, in letting Galadriel take point on where they would be heading, he would need the raft to make it through a severe storm intact with both of them still alive—with all the tossing about, change in direction, and chance of losing the raft altogether—and end up somewhere in the path of a ship, which will just so happen to be in the right area, that will bring them to Númenor. And this is despite the fact that he acts as if he never heard of Númenor (obviously false for book Sauron, but there is no reason to say this ignorance was not genuine for Amazon Sauron). Fortunately for the both of them, everything fell perfectly into place for the plot to get where it goes.
Five, despite Amazon Sauron’s stated intentions of staying in Númenor and working as a smith going against the ultimate outcome of ending up in Eregion and forging the Rings, Galadriel would need to have her first breakthrough in over 1,000 years in understanding the mark Sauron left by finding just the right information in a hall of lore in Númenor that neither he nor she knew about. But wouldn’t you know it? Everything falls perfectly into place for the plot to get where it goes.
Six, in the process of that same contrived breakthrough (which I dissected thoroughly in the episode 3 review), he would need Galadriel to happen upon the one document she would need to learn the significance about the pendant he wears for some unknown reason (seriously, even by the end of this episode, we do not know why he wore it) as being the mark of the King of the Southlands, and precisely none of the documents she would need to show that Halbrand is not the lost King of the Southlands. If she even bothered to try to find anything to verify his identity beyond his pendant before the last episode of this season, the Rings of Power never would have been made because Sauron would not have come to Middle-earth and he would not be in the right place at the right time to correct Celebrimbor’s plot-convenient ignorance to give him the idea for making what will become the Rings of Power. But she finds exactly what she does and does not need to in order for the plot to get where it goes.
Seven, additionally, Amazon Sauron would need to count on all of these previous contrivances coming together to convince Galadriel that their meeting was the work of a higher power (though, really, that “higher power” is the writers’ collective) and that she would thereby push forward with absolute conviction. Of course, this is the writers’ only way of accounting for so many contrivances, and yet more, in this plotline. But as we noted in the episode 7 review, these writers are confused about the notion of divine providence in Tolkien’s work. But what is more, with the resolution of this mystery, we need either to dismiss this idea as being false, and thereby undermine any would-be utility it has in explaining the stacked contrivances, or to accept that the writers have a horrific notion of the purpose of this “something greater” (which Galadriel never names; as we will see later, only the villains ever explicitly name Eru/“the One”). Either the writing is so hopelessly broken that even the desperate appeal of deus ex machina in this context is cut off by the writers themselves, or the writers are actually trying to say that Eru and/or the Valar orchestrated this meeting—and all the contrivances pertaining thereto—to happen in order to bring about all the suffering that will come as a result of Sauron taking the turn that he does (a turn he never needed to take because he is freaking SAURON, practically the Devil’s Favorite Demon). I suppose there is a third way out, which is still horrific and no closer to Tolkien: the “something greater” did orchestrate this meeting in order to bring about Sauron’s “redemption,” since he presents himself as repentant, and Galadriel ruined it by rejecting his romantic advances and wanting to kill him (rather than trying anything to help such a powerful being on his path to redemption and letting him expose any potential evil intentions that way). Whatever the case, it sure is fortunate for Amazon Sauron that everything works out exactly as it needs to in order for the plot to get where it goes.
Eight, Amazon Sauron would have had no reason to leave Númenor despite his express wishes if not for the sudden change of heart for Míriel and the Númenóreans in general. This change of heart would not have happened if Míriel had not been in the right place at the right time to see the petals of Nimloth fall and conclude from this ambiguous “portent” that she actually needed to go with Galadriel. Otherwise, she would have gone about her day, and, as we learn in episode 5, he would have been free and working as a smith like he wanted without Galadriel around to pester him to go back to Middle-earth. But what allows this idea to go forward is that the Númenóreans undergo a sudden and complete change of heart to volunteer for this expeditionary force to help the Elf they were hostile to yesterday, which, based on the information the show has provided us, no one had reason to think could actually happen. If the recruitment effort had not succeeded against all reason, Amazon Sauron would have had no impetus to go back to Middle-earth. But you better believe that no obstacle will stand in the way of everything working out exactly as it needs to in order for the plot to get where it goes.
Nine, again, despite Amazon Sauron actively working against Galadriel’s purpose and objecting to his involvement therein at every turn, he would need her to persist in insisting to bring him along and manage to, somehow, say just the right words to convince him to come along. Whereas book Sauron’s plan was straightforward yet subtle and requiring great patience, determination, clarity of thinking, and meticulousness to execute, Amazon Sauron has no grand purpose and actively works against what brought him to this point in the story. If he had gotten what he wanted, he would never be here and he would never participate in the development of the Rings of Power because Celebrimbor would have never gotten the idea. But despite his wishes, even despite him giving up his pendant at one point, his presence in Eregion can only be possible by the script contriving a change in heart for him engineered by one of the show’s worst-written scenes (and that is saying something). In this case, the contrivance is not an external one, but an internal one that makes no sense, but without which he could not have arrived at this point. Even his own will cannot ultimately thwart everything working out exactly as it needs to in order for the plot to get where it goes.
Ten, for all of this to work out as it has after Amazon Sauron arrives in Middle-earth (and for him to ultimately end up in Eregion at the right time), he would need the army to be in the right place at the right time (despite no scouting and the complete idiocy of crossing that much distance in the time given) to save the Southlanders and, in order to create what Morfydd Clark herself called “sexual tension” between him and Amazon Galadriel, he would need to be wherever he needed to be and do whatever he needed to do to capture Adar and make the scene happen. Of course, technically, one could break this point and all of these points down into multiple contrivances each (as I noted the many contrivances of the battle in the episode 6 review). But for simplicity, I treat each event as a separate contrivance, not necessarily every aspect of each event. The point remains that this battle necessarily has so many moving parts to it (even disregarding the contrivances that came before he showed up here) that, if the Númenóreans arrived too late or went to the wrong place, if Halbrand had not been able to impossibly teleport in front of Adar, if Arondir did not suffer plot-convenient brain damage, if both Halbrand and Galadriel did not happen to lack all inquisitiveness about the bundle, then nothing that happens in these scenes could have happened, the Orcs would have regrouped with reinforcements and Adar would have triggered the volcano well before they arrived. And there would be no basis for “sexual tension” because they would not have had that particular awful scene together. In fact, if Galadriel did not have plot-convenient amnesia, she could have brought up her husband as a reason for not pursuing anything further. But as we have noted before, everything involved in that battle and in that awful scene will fall into place exactly where it needs to fall in order for the plot to get where it goes.
Eleven, another contrivance that would be necessary for Amazon Sauron to be here is everything that happened with the volcano. I already dissected that absurdity in the episode 6 review, but without it, Amazon Sauron would have had no reason to come to Eregion at all, much less in a timely fashion to give Celebrimbor the idea that would lead to the development of the Rings. He would have been a pretend king, however exactly that would have worked out, in the Southlands and gone about his merry way if not for the volcano being triggered by the most ridiculous of circumstances and ruining everything. But just like with the ignition of the volcano itself, one thing that these writers have been consistent about is that everything will happen as it needs to happen, regardless of whether it logically should happen, in order for the plot to get where it goes.
Twelve, following this contrivance, he would need to get wounded (somehow) on the road just bad enough that he needs “Elvish medicine” rather than the healing Men can provide, while also being just healthy enough to not die during an absurd non-stop five-day ride that would arouse no suspicion from Galadriel. Without such a convenient wound, there would be no reason for him to go to the Elves and not stay among the Southlanders, then arrive at the right time to give Celebrimbor his idea (who would also conveniently not know about alloying, despite being the greatest Elven smith of his time). Even the timeline for the trip is a contrivance, not only because it makes no sense (as noted previously), but also because if the time to travel had been more realistic, Galadriel, even as dense as she is, might have noticed something odd about his condition remaining so stable over such a long and arduous journey, even if he should rightly be dead if he was a mortal Man. And if the timeline had been more realistic, Sauron would have arrived too late to give Celebrimbor the idea he somehow would not have thought of. But everything, even space and time, will inevitably bend to the necessity of the plot getting to where it goes.
We also would not be here without Sauron making various decisions that would make zero sense for Tolkien’s Sauron to make. First, with the Elves at risk of losing their immortality, he decides to help them both keep their immortality and stay in Middle-earth, despite the obstacle they would be to his rule. Second, although Elendil is a Númenórean, a people that Sauron hates, although Elendil, along with Gil-galad, will be one of the characters that fights and kills Sauron (at least physically for a time, which would have been permanent if the Ring had been destroyed), and although Sauron hated Elendil more than anyone in Middle-earth when he returned, this Sauron actually decides to save Elendil in battle rather than let him die. Third, despite the threat Galadriel poses to Sauron, this Sauron does not kill her when she is vulnerable or leave her to die in the sea. Of course, this whole story could not have happened with Tolkien’s Sauron, so the character needed to be changed. Fourth, although Adar is a show-only character, Tolkien’s Sauron would certainly have killed a character like Adar when he had the chance (like, say, going back and killing him after Galadriel’s interrogation, which he could pass off as revenge for killing someone he loved).
Sauron’s Big Reveal and the Culmination of ROP’s Failure: Ludicrous Visions and the Last Temptation of Amazon Galadriel
While we already see that Sauron’s character has been fundamentally changed for this story to happen and for it to get to this point, I assure you, it is only going to get worse as we proceed through this sequence between him and Galadriel. His opening gambit is to put Galadriel in an illusory reunion with Finrod. I must say, what is so vexing about this scene is the realization that Finrod, another character who had to be revised to fit into this show, and his counsel about “touching the darkness” as one of the most important truths was not easily distinguishable from Sauron in the first place. I had said this as a criticism of that line in episode 1, but with how they played this revelation of Sauron, I did not realize how appropriate it was going to be for the end of the season as well.
In fact, the first tip that we have that she is not dreaming her own dream, but is somehow ensnared within Sauron’s illusion, is when Finrod speaks positively of Sauron himself. That is, he said his task was, “to ensure peace. But I learned that was Sauron’s task as well.” Of course, Tolkien’s Sauron’s goal was to bring order to the world according to his will, and thus to exert domination over others, but I suppose he could twist this into an idea for ensuring peace. The problem with this bit of dialogue, though, is that I am not sure what Sauron thought this would accomplish. It is not as if Finrod faked his own death. He did not come to see Sauron’s way of things, otherwise there would have been no need for the fatal encounter between them (according to this show’s omission of the story of Beren and Lúthien in which Finrod died in Tolkien’s work). If this is supposed to work on the idea that he is speaking from the perspective of the re-embodied Finrod who now sees things differently, this would once again undermine Galadriel’s whole purpose of vengeance, since her brother is not dead. But again, I doubt that the writers really want to open that can of worms that is Elven reincarnation at this point in light of how it would undermine their story. Regardless, it is difficult to make sense of what Sauron actually thinks will work about this tactic and on what basis it could work.
The next clear indication that this could not be Finrod is when he refers to “your fellow Elves” in this line: “He was seeking a power not to destroy Middle-earth, but to heal it. Just as your fellow Elves are seeking to do this very moment. You needn’t lie to them. Simply let the work proceed.” We have already discussed in the episode 6 review how his supposed purpose of “healing” Middle-earth does not fit with Tolkien’s Sauron, and it would not be helped by the One Ring. We have also already noted that Tolkien’s Sauron would prefer for Elves to lose their immortality or leave Middle-earth in this scenario (consider that Sauron tried to wipe out the Elves in the War of the Elves and Sauron). Thus, you would think he would actually be subtly sabotaging the work on the Rings while feigning to help. Also, the Elves are not seeking to heal Middle-earth. They are seeking to heal themselves, because now what they seek to preserve is not what is external to them, but themselves. But you know what is really remarkable about all of this? Galadriel will do exactly what he wants in this regard. We will talk more about that problem later, but yes, she lets the work proceed without saying anything to give fair warning. Of course, the writers have forced this story into this corner by their many screwy decisions that led to the Rings of Power being a last-ditch, slapdash effort, rather than the product of careful long-term work in line with Sauron’s own meticulous and slow-paced plan of deceit leading to his goal of domination.
Sauron as Finrod then follows this up with saying, “Do you remember what I whispered to you under this very tree? Touch the darkness once more.” In addition to how this shows that what Finrod said in episode 1 easily plays into Sauron’s hands, this part of the scene raises questions. How did Sauron know about this memory? We know that Galadriel recited Finrod’s lie to Sauron in episode 5, but she never said it was something Finrod told her, nor did she say anything about the circumstances in which he told her. Is the implication that Sauron could actually access her memories at this level? Can he access other such secrets in this fashion? These are all questions you can expect no answers to.
Galadriel snaps to say, “My brother is dead. Because of you.” In addition to how this is actually wrong in light of how Elves reincarnate (her brother died, but he is not currently dead), this line further confirms that she was spouting lies in episode 5 when she denied that she was motivated by vengeance (and then proceeded to put nothing in its place for her “motivation”). But these are problems we have noted in other cases. What is new here is something that drives home how horribly mishandled this scene was and what could have been significantly better. We will learn later in this sequence that Sauron’s goal is to seduce Galadriel (and yes, I do mean sexually, not just seducing her to the dark side). And yet with that goal of seducing, he appears to her as her brother, not as her husband. WHY? This would have been a perfect opportunity for Celeborn to actually appear and not just be mentioned in an afterthought of one scene. We could have seen her joy after being reunited with Celeborn after all these years, and maybe in that overwhelming joy she kisses him, only to realize that she has been deceived into kissing Sauron. That would be incredibly scarring and pretty much the most effective kind of moment you could ask for with this misbegotten plotline of a romantic pursuit. But whether or not that moment happens, why would an attempt to seduce her not involve him taking on the appearance of her husband to begin with? Really, it is because the writers do not care about Celeborn, at least as far as the first season is concerned. He was too much of an obstacle to the story they wanted to tell, he had to be removed, and they were not interested in dealing with him further for at least the first season.
The next part of this illusion puts both Galadriel and Sauron on the raft from episode 2. And here is where Amazon Sauron attempts to lay bare how penitent he is. When he tries to say he is her friend and she snaps back that he is a friend of Morgoth’s (the super-important villain that we never saw), he responds, “When Morgoth was defeated, it was as if a great, clenched fist had released its grasp from my neck. And in the stillness of that first sunrise, at last, I felt the light of The One again. And I knew if ever I was to be forgiven that I had to heal everything that I had helped to ruin.” Let us begin with noting how this differs from Tolkien’s version of Sauron and his penitence at the end of the First Age, which one can find at the beginning of “Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age” in The Silmarillion:
Of old there was Sauron the Maia, whom the Sindar in Beleriand named Gorthaur. In the beginning of Arda Melkor seduced him to his allegiance, and he became the greatest and most trusted of the servants of the Enemy, and the most perilous, for he could assume many forms, and for long if he willed he could still appear noble and beautiful, so as to deceive all but the most wary.
When Thangorodrim was broken and Morgoth overthrown, Sauron put on his fair hue again and did obeisance to Eönwë, the herald of Manwë, and abjured all his evil deeds. And some hold that this was not at first falsely done, but that Sauron in truth repented, if only out of fear, being dismayed by the fall of Morgoth and the great wrath of the Lords of the West. But it was not within the power of Eönwë to pardon those of his own order, and he commanded Sauron to return to Aman and there receive the judgement of Manwë. Then Sauron was ashamed, and he was unwilling to return in humiliation and to receive from the Valar a sentence, it might be, of long servitude in proof of his good faith; for under Morgoth his power had been great. Therefore when Eönwë departed he hid himself in Middle-earth; and he fell back into evil, for the bonds that Morgoth had laid upon him were very strong.
Since the writers have already shown an apparent ability to reference things outside of those noted in LOTR without visually adapting them, it is unclear why they did not stick with this version of Sauron, other than out of a desire to change him and his motivation. Changes for adaptation are not inherently bad, of course. But I must ask: to what good end are these changes being made? To none, as it turns out, since Sauron’s evil in the Second and Third Age will be made to stem from him being a scorned lover when his attempts at simping fail.
And if that is how the show wants us to think that Sauron has felt for the 1,000 years or so since Morgoth has been defeated, why did he not repent to the Powers/Valar? It sounds like this version of Sauron would not be so bothered by the long servitude if it meant he could heal what he helped to ruin. I mean, he is not the only one who has said this about his purpose. Adar said this as well, and being Sauron’s enemy, he had no reason to lie on his behalf. There is a fundamental incoherency with this stated desire and his experiments to craft a power “over flesh,” but I guess the writers want us to forget that for now, since Galadriel also forgets it and never brings that stuff up to undermine his words (because Amazon Galadriel is not that smart). And why, if this is such a longstanding feeling he has had and he had a longstanding antipathy to Morgoth despite (or perhaps because of) being his chief servant, will Sauron take over Númenor by establishing a cult dedicated to Morgoth after deceiving the Númenóreans into thinking that Eru Ilúvatar is an invention of the Valar? Within the timeline of this show, that will be a rather sudden and total change? I know that this is something that is mentioned in The Silmarillion and not LOTR (as far as I can remember), so we will probably not get this cult as such featured in the show. But if there is not some kind of cult in place, it would fit with the writers’ tendency to stray far away from Tolkien. And if they want us to take seriously their claim that they constantly went “back to the books,” surely their version of Sauron should at least be broadly reconcilable with what is in the books. This one is not reconcilable on this score and many others.
A final comment on this line is how peculiar it is yet again that the only people who mention the One in such an explicit fashion are the villains. At least in Sauron’s case, unlike Adar’s, it makes sense that he would believe in the existence of Eru Ilúvatar, since he knows without a doubt that he exists. But it is peculiar how in episode 3 Galadriel said that Men lacked the conviction to name the greater power(s), yet she has never once referred to the One as such. Nor have any of those who have been indicated to be sympathetic to the Faithful—no one has actually come out and explicitly confessed to being one of the Faithful as yet—referred to the One. It would be somewhat similar to how, if we were dealing with a Chronicles of Narnia adaptation, all the heroic characters never refer to Aslan or only refer to him vaguely while the villains are the only ones who refer to him explicitly. I cannot say that I understand this choice on the writers’ part, and I am not convinced that they understand it either.
Of course, Galadriel says that Sauron is irredeemable, that no penance could ever erase what he did. We are a long way from Elrond’s comment from FOTR, which this series poorly appropriated the first part of as its opening line, “For nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so” (II/2). Tolkien actually pushed back on multiple occasions against the idea that Orcs are irredeemably evil because they are not evil in origin and, as fits with his Christian theology, no being is actually evil in origin (see Letters #153 and #269). By extension, he would not say Sauron or even Melkor/Morgoth was irredeemably evil, though it would make sense to say these characters have no interest in what is involved in seeking redemption. Thus, again, for someone who shares a name with one of Tolkien’s wisest characters, we are a long way away from Tolkien and his ideas and from a character who could be expected to exemplify them to some extent.
Of course, Sauron calls her out on not really believing this, though he cites her words for when she did not know she was talking to Sauron:
“After our victory, you said that whatever I’d done before I could be free of it now.”
“You deceived me.”
“I told you the truth. I told you that I had done evil, and you did not care. Because you knew that our past meant nothing, weighed against our future.”
The writers are trying to rewrite what was happening here and in the earlier scene from episode 5 where she essentially said it didn’t matter what he did. It is more that she does not care what he did because it does not fit her purposes, or so she thinks. That is why she made that point in episode 5, just because she wanted him to shut up and get on the ship. Sauron, in the midst of his simping, wants to describe this as “our future,” but really Amazon Galadriel was only concerned about her future, her goals, and how others could serve them. On this basis, he wants to say that just as she alone pushed him to new heights, simply by ignoring his wishes and pushing him to submit to her will, he alone sees her quality: “All others look on you with doubt. I alone can see your greatness. I alone can see your light.” I suppose he is kind of right because Amazon Galadriel is not great and I would hardly describe her as being associated with light, particularly since her whole reason for jumping from the ship to the Undying Lands was because of a principle about touching the darkness (but, of course, I have gone into much more detail about these things elsewhere).
The aforementioned flirting line from Sauron was said after a vision he showed her in the water of her standing at his side as his queen. Yes, as I said before, he is trying to seduce her in that sense, and it is disgusting. You know who never gets mentioned in all this attempt at seduction? Celeborn. That’s right, Galadriel never mentions her husband, never says she would not betray him by bonding with Sauron, and never states point-blank that she could never even consider the idea because of her love for her lost (but not confirmed dead) husband. It is omissions like this that confirm the impression of how much of an afterthought the mere reference to Celeborn was in episode 7. If the reference to him had been removed, nothing about the first season’s story or the characterization of Amazon Galadriel would change. It is but a token gesture to let fans know that the writers are aware of Celeborn’s existence, but they just don’t care about it for the purposes of their story.
Galadriel objects that Sauron would make her a tyrant. That is a laughable concern, considering how Amazon Galadriel has acted this whole season. She already has the attitude of a tyrant down to a tee. It is just that in this situation she would have more authority to impose her will. Sure, she absolutely should not be in that position, but why she, specifically, would object to this prospect of being a tyrant is not entirely clear based on how the character has been written.
But Sauron appropriates dialogue from Tolkien’s Galadriel (again, as in episode 2) to give this whole sequence a false air of legitimacy by this poor appropriation and an inauthentic impression of care for the books. He says, “I would make you a queen. Fair as the sea and the sun. Stronger than the foundations of the earth.” This is taken from what Galadriel said when Frodo offered her the One Ring:
And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair! (II/7)
If we are to see this as a legitimate connection, as the writers and the fans would insist, Galadriel would, on two separate occasions for two completely different reasons, be saying lines that she heard from Sauron, and this despite their strong antipathy and how Galadriel has made a point in that same chapter of how, “I perceive the Dark Lord and know his mind, or all of his mind that concerns the Elves. And he gropes ever to see me and my though. But still the door is closed!” The line that she says in the book makes sense in light of her own pride and that the corrupting influence of the Ring would allow her to fulfill this dark desire that she would otherwise never pursue. But if she is drawing on the words of Sauron that she would have remembered for a long time, it undermines the sense of antipathy between Sauron and a character who can see right through him, and it undermines her own complexity as a character because this would be Sauron speaking through her, and not her own words giving voice to her darker side. The scene would also be less about her mastering her own darker side, her own inclinations to evil, than it would be about finally putting to rest an offer that Sauron made long ago and that she has held onto in her mind, despite the reunion (assuming the show’s ruinous account) with her husband and their thousands of years of loving union together.
Another thing that sets this line apart from the original one is how it omits the darker aspects of her self-description because Sauron’s whole point is that he would not be the Dark Lord with her at his side. He is an awful judge of character if he thinks that, but whatever. And this is despite the fact that he used her own brother’s words, by which she still lives, against her in telling her to “touch the darkness.” Either this is Sauron being inconsistent or the writers forgetting his message here. I would not discount either possibility in light of everything else we have seen in this series.
I will break down the rest of the dialogue in this scene in three parts. First, Sauron makes this appeal with Galadriel’s responses:
“You told me once, that we were brought together for a purpose. This is it. You bind me to the light. And I bind you to power. Together, we can save this Middle-earth.”
“Save? Or rule?”
“I see no difference.”
“And that is why I will never be at your side.”
What makes this line from Galadriel so rich is that she was literally trying to install him as a king in the Southlands as part of her effort to save the Southlands. Obviously, then, she would not see such a harsh distinction between saving and ruling. Later, Aragorn will save much by the fact that he will rule, so this bifurcation she is trying to make over and against Sauron does not fit with Tolkien’s story either. And it is not as if she objects to the idea of having authority over others and benefiting her people thereby, as she became a queen in the Second Age and would continue to rule in Lothlórien with Celeborn in the Third Age. In fact, it was out of a desire to rule (as well as to explore) that Tolkien’s Galadriel did not wish to return to the Undying Lands (whether she actually could or not, depending on the version of Tolkien’s story of Galadriel one reads). If she had said in this context, “Save? Or control?” and then Sauron responded as he did, that would have fit better with the character as Tolkien wrote him, and it would have done better to convey that he did, in fact, have evil intentions, if that is what we are supposed to take away from all of this. Then her line would have made more sense. As it stands, her stated reason for this final resolution in rejecting Sauron’s offer is not because he killed her brother (her whole motivation, as problematic as that is), not because she has a husband (who she seems to presume is dead, since she brought him up in answer to Theo’s question about “losing someone”), not because of the suffering Sauron inflicted, but it is because he wants to rule. What a waste.
Since seduction is not working out for him, Sauron then tries to browbeat:
“You have no choice. Without me, your people will fade. And the shadow will spread and darken to cover all the world. You need me.”
“I should have left you on the sea.”
This highlights again that the origin of the “shadow” that is causing the tree and the Elves to decay is never explained. It is not as if Sauron is newly arrived in Middle-earth, so why would it have begun so recently? And it is not as if Sauron was enacting a plan through (somehow) inflicting this decay on the tree and (somehow) the Elves by extension, since, as we have established, there is no plan, unless Sauron is also actively working against it and is, in fact, relying upon a long series of contrivances to make it happen. Where, then, did it actually come from? Don’t know. I’m not convinced the writers know either. But at least Sauron does get right that the Elves are at risk of “fading,” not “dying” right away, as if the loss of immortality (as absurd as that is) will mean instant death.
Also, Galadriel’s line does not make sense. She was in no position to leave him on the sea. He had the raft and he pulled her onto it. She never rescued him, though he rescued her (again, in a decision Tolkien’s Sauron would have never made). If she had said she should have “thrown” him into the sea, that would have actually made sense and it was something she was in a position to do. But neither Galadriel nor the writers seem to remember the details of episode 2 (though details have never been their strong suit).
The final bit of dialogue in this scene goes as follows:
“A sea that you were on because the Elves cast you out. They cast you out for deigning to beg them for a few petty soldiers. What will you do when you tell them that you are my ally? When you tell them that Sauron lives because of you?”
“And you will die because of me!”
*screaming back and forth intensifies in comedic fashion*
Seriously, I am not sure whose idea it was to have this scene end with these two people just screaming noises at each other, but it certainly wasn’t a good idea. There is no great struggle that goes with all of this, as she just fails at the thing she has been trying for over 1,000 years to do, and how she failed is left deliberately confusing. Also, I know that Galadriel thinks she was “cast out” by the Elves, as she was certainly sent away, and Sauron is playing on that, but make no mistake: she cast herself into that sea. Let’s not get this twisted. It should not matter if she tells them that she was deceived into being his ally. But we will get to how she actually takes Sauron’s words to heart and tells her closest confidants NOTHING.
With that, the dialogue ends. Unfortunately, the episode does not end yet, and there are things we still need to talk about. I remind you that all of this has taken place because Galadriel, a character from Tolkien who could see right through Sauron, could not see through Sauron. In other words, this story was only possible because the writers took away the characteristics of wisdom, insight, and what I have generally labeled “people skills” that would have allowed her to see right through him. This story could not have happened without actively weakening Galadriel and making her dumber for no apparent reason than the requirements of this alternative to Tolkien. I’m not sure how she can properly be described as a “strong character” if she had to be so thoroughly weakened for this story to even be possible. On top of it all, the implication of this conversation and everything that has led up to it is that Galadriel is at least partly responsible for all the untold suffering that Sauron will bring upon Middle-earth in the Second and Third Ages. It is safe to say by now that the gutting of this character—to the point that she only resembles her book counterpart in her externals—for the sake of this quality of story was not worth it.
Sauron, too, is unrecognizable from his Tolkien self. Gone is the character so obsessed with his own sense of order and will to power that he will patiently and meticulously work out plans for domination over centuries. While Tolkien did not write it, Frank Herbert’s description from Dune of the Baron Harkonnen as devising “plans within plans within plans” fits Tolkien’s Sauron, but not the Amazon-brand Sauron who is just along for the ride the script sends him on. Gone is the great deceiver who spends millennia outmaneuvering the greatest powers and minds in Middle-earth (and Númenor), even when he lost wars (as he showed a consistent knack of being able to come back from defeat of his forces more easily than his enemies could come back from costly victories). This show’s version instead must rely on contrivance not of his own making or on those people being incompetent in order for him to appear competent. Gone is the great tempter, the Dark Lord known for his pride and arrogance who knew well how to play upon the pride of others. In his place, we have someone who inflicts untold suffering on Middle-earth in the Second and Third Ages, not because it is all part of his greater purposes, but because he apparently sought redemption in a union with Galadriel and everything else will come as the rage of a scorned lover, after Galadriel forgot her husband and led Sauron on in their awkward romance scene in episode 6. What a terrible motivation. At least it makes Tolkien’s Sauron easy to disconnect from this version of Sauron. You do not need to think about such things when you are reading LOTR and what that book (or any of Tolkien’s other books mentioning him) says about Sauron because they are completely different characters.
Now That That’s Done with …
Now after that, after all of that mess, we see Galadriel has somehow fallen in the nearby pond. As we learned in episode 2, she must reflexively stop breathing when she falls in the water to avoid drowning. We never learn why Sauron does not kill her, since he apparently cannot dominate her. Maybe that will come up in season 2, but they are not roping me in for another season, so whatever. It just seems like Sauron is unnecessarily making things more difficult for himself by leaving her alive when he had her at his mercy. He could have still escaped as he did, but if he is trying to hide his identity as Sauron for now, it seems like he took an unnecessary risk in leaving her alive. For whatever reason, this Amazon-brand Sauron does not think that way.
Elrond happens upon her in this pond and tries to get her out of it. Because Galadriel knows Sauron can shapeshift, she tells Elrond to prove that he is Elrond. Specifically, she asks him where they first met. But has it not been established that Sauron can know things that he should not be able to know by somehow accessing memories? How else would the writers explain how he knew about Finrod’s statement to Galadriel? Did he just read the script? Did he not read this part of the script so that he could not pull this trick? In any case, Elrond says, “Seaside. When I was first orphaned. I was alone. A young, half-elven boy, without friend or kin. You gave me water.” Of course, we have to be told that Amazon Galadriel was this good, because you would not guess based on what we have seen that Amazon Galadriel would be this compassionate. There is no other action in this show by which she clearly and unequivocally demonstrates such a quality. But this account is also odd because of how it needs to rewrite Elrond’s story to make Amazon Galadriel look better. She was nowhere near the Havens of Sirion at the relevant time in the First Age, as she had already passed into Eriador (i.e., not even in the land of Beleriand anymore). Elrond was orphaned in the sense of his parents never returning, but they never actually died, as they both continue to live on, with Elwing living in the Undying Lands. After his father left on his voyage and Elwing escaped with the Silmaril in her possession, he and Elros were fostered by Maglor for the next several decades in repentance of what he and his brothers had done in the three kin-slayings trying to reclaim the Silmarils (and the brothers would even grow to love Maglor as he would grow to love them). Maglor would eventually abandon them when he and his brother Maedhros attempted one last time to reclaim the Silmarils, and I already mentioned what happened in that case. Elrond was not sundered from his brother Elros until the early years of the Second Age, when Elros became the first King of the Númenóreans, a time when Elrond was several decades old. How does one fit this story into that account? The writers (maybe) could have come up with a better backstory that would fit, but they simply didn’t.
Anyway, both of them return to Celebrimbor’s place to address what has happened (kind of). Oddly enough, Galadriel, despite her suspicion of Elrond in light of Sauron’s shapeshifting ability, never once questions if Celebrimbor is Sauron. Of course, it will turn out that this is the real Celebrimbor, but from her perspective, she doesn’t know that yet. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (yes, I am mentioning it again just because there are enough grounds for comparison) derived much drama both from the Changelings being able to appear like the main cast and the people they know and from how they were able to avoid detection so well (even managing to use memories they got from intel and working around the test designed to detect them). But now that this show has established that we have a villain with shapeshifting ability, we get … nothing beyond the quickly resolved first case. Oh joy.
Just Checking on Amazon Galadriel … Yes, She Is Still Awful
When Elrond asks where Halbrand is, Galadriel says, “He is gone. And I doubt he will return. And should he ever, none of us are to treat with him again.” You would think this would be a prime opportunity for her to say, “Hey guys, after over 1,000 years of searching, I just found SAURON.” You would think this would be a prime opportunity for her to inform them that the Rings of Power are an idea from Sauron, that he wants them to be made, and that maybe they need to reconsider this plan. You would think this would be a prime opportunity for her to mention how Sauron deceived her, and she would be in the company of others he had deceived, on which basis they could craft a plan of action to go after him and maybe, by that means, address the decay (from their perspective, they do not know Sauron did not do all of this). But according to Amazon Galadriel and her writers, you would be wrong. She tells them NONE of this. She gives no reason why Halbrand is not to be trusted anymore. She steadfastly refuses to elaborate, despite how helpful such information could be, even though he has been the object of her quest for vengeance for over 1,000 years. This could have been her final vindication, the proof Elrond needed to trust her before, to confirm once and for all that Sauron lives, that he is at work, and he is walked in their very midst. But no. For no good reason, she tells her friends NOTHING. What a terrible person. What a terrible character. I am so ashamed that she shares a name with such a good character of Tolkien’s imagination. The audience of this show needs to read Tolkien’s work to see a much better Galadriel without all of her key qualities gutted to make a story happen. (And no, it is not a matter of this being a younger Galadriel; a Galadriel who is thousands of years old is not a child or in any way immature. And she had her key characteristics before she even left the Undying Lands, well before the Second Age. That is why she did not trust her kinsman, Fëanor.)
What makes this even worse is that Elrond realizes she is obviously hiding something, but Galadriel tries to shut down any questions he has. She says to Elrond, “You spoke to me once of a mistake. One you said you would not make again.” That mistake was not trusting Galadriel, and thus the promise that he would never distrust her again. So you see, she is not only being evasive; she is actively obfuscating. She is exploiting a promise from Elrond—which, I know, are not really worth anything in light of his frequent dishonest conduct—to enforce his trust while she is actively showing that she is not to be trusted. Amazon’s Elves are horrible people, and Amazon-brand Galadriel most of all. This should have been her confirmation that she was worthy of trust all along, and it is an example she could always fall back on for future reference. Instead, she takes advantage of trust to lie by omission, presumably because she could not bear the thought of looking the slightest bit vulnerable, the slightest bit like a fool. The maintenance of her image is more important than the future of Middle-earth.
In any case, although Celebrimbor directly asks her if they should proceed, meaning she had a clear opportunity to say something, she just insists that they go forward with the idea. And because the writers must take the long way around to explaining things about the Rings, having abandoned Tolkien’s narrative framework, we also get an explanation of why there are three and only three Great Rings. In the exchange we get from Galadriel and Celebrimbor, the following is said:
“We must make three…. One will always corrupt. Two will divide.”
“But with three, there is balance.”
“The powers we forge today must be for the Elves alone. Untouched by other hands.”
I guess we are just supposed to take their word for it because nothing about this explanation is intuitive. How does three provide balance when it is an inherently imbalanced number, being odd. You could perhaps make the connection between three and balance, but you cannot just say so and think that is sufficient. It is also odd that she makes a point of saying that the powers of these Rings must be for the Elves alone and untouched by other hands. Sauron is gone, so what hands of other races even could touch them? Are we supposed to think she is racist against Dwarves (even though such a characteristic would be more unfitting for Galadriel than any other Elf)? There are no settlements of Men anywhere nearby. If this is supposed to be some protection against Sauron coming back in a new form, how does she know he cannot come back as one of the nameless Elves working on the Rings in the background?
There is another line to comment on before the scene switches, but first we need to talk about how the writers have broken the lore yet again. I have already outlined the story of the Rings of Power, and the reader may notice that nothing has been said of the Seven or the Nine. Those are the Rings Sauron had a hand in making before crafting his One Ring. The Three that Celebrimbor made were made last of all the other Rings before Sauron’s Ring, but here they are made not only first of all, but there is not even another plan to make more, at least in this season. At this point the sixteen other Rings will need to be crowbarred into this story next season after it has ceased to make sense for the Elves to make them given what Galadriel knows. In the original story, Sauron deceived the smiths into making the Rings presumably for their own benefit, but here one of the characters knows that Sauron is behind making the Rings and simply refuses to say anything about it. Sauron never participated in making the Three and he did not know about them until afterwards, though he never knew where they were or who had them. In this show, Sauron is not around to see that his idea has been turned into three rings, rather than two, but he knows of these Rings and he has even handled the materials they were made of, as he has handled the mithril and the metal it will be alloyed with (in episode 3). Thus, the crucial point that Elrond and others insist on that Three were never sullied by Sauron’s touch is false in this story.
Celebrimbor then tells Galadriel what is needed to complete the project: “Galadriel, I have determined that the purity of the lesser ores in the alloy is crucial. I need gold and silver of the most exquisite quality. I need gold and silver from Valinor. True creation requires … sacrifice.” That is, she needs to give up her brother’s knife that she has been carrying around, since it is apparently made of pure gold and silver. That is clear enough from the handle, but I guess the blade is also made of silver, maybe? Otherwise, you would think that the addition of steel would ruin the mixture, since he specifically said, “gold and silver.” But if the blade is made of silver, why has that not been established to this point? It is not unusual for blades to be made of steel, so this is something that does not need to be established, as the audience would expect as much. But if it is being made to look like steel, yet it is actually silver, that would need to be established because it is unusual. It is almost as if the writers never thought about that, and just wanted to force this knife into focus in a bunch of scenes across the series (even in the first episode, she uses it to point on a map) to let you know that it’s important.
But I think it is hilarious how we are supposed to buy this as necessary, that this big moment of Galadriel giving up her brother’s knife, the dagger she has been carrying around to use for killing Sauron (at which she failed abysmally) is simply a matter of necessary sacrifice. After all, apparently NO ONE has any gold or silver from Valinor, except for her, even though all the Elves who came from Valinor would have had gold and silver for weapons and/or armor (at least, as this show is implying), and some of them still live. No one else, not even in this whole city (or the whole realm of Eregion, since it is a realm and not just a city) brought any with them, or it has somehow all been conveniently lost, and she is the last person who has what they need. Celebrimbor, the master smith, simply does not have any of it at hand. And they try to tie it in with Celebrimbor’s line repeated from episode 2, which was completely apropos of nothing in that context, as I noted in the review. We now see it was there simply to be something for this scene to call back to. But what makes it funny is that he is basically saying, “True creation requires sacrifice, and your sacrifice is a price I am willing to pay.”
Farewell You Horrible Harfoots, May We Never See You Again
Alright, enough of that plotline now, because we need to wrap up the other one that is still going for this season. We are back with the Harfoots at their camp. What is strange about this establishing shot is that, unlike any other scene we have had with them, they have clearly been planting things and there are rather distinct fences. In other words, this is looking like a settlement. Yet the Harfoots are gearing up to go on trail somewhere. Why are they all going somewhere else if they are setting up what looks like settlement? Why are they setting up what looks like a settlement if they are going to continue their nomadic way of life? Why do we have these contradictions? Who cares? The show is almost over (well, kind of, as this scene does drag on for a rather long time).
Anyway, Off-Brandalf is telling Nori that he must go to Rhûn to restore his memory. Considering how evil those cultists were that were trying to get him to go there, I am not sure why he is sticking with this idea. Their explanation in terms of the Hermit’s Hat only being visible there does not make sense, as I already noted, but the writers don’t have any other reason for him to go there, so here we are.
We also learn in this scene that Off-Brandalf, despite being a guy who could hardly speak an episode ago, is suddenly written like everyone else in this show when he explains that he will not be continuing to travel with the Harfoots: “Betimes, our paths are laid before us by powers greater than our own. In those moments, it’s our task to make our feet go where our hearts wish not to tread. No matter the perils awaiting us on the way.” All she asked was if he was going with them or not, and like seemingly every other character at some point in this series, he does not directly (or in this case, actually) answer the question posed to him. He could have said, “No,” and then followed up with something like this. And the point about perils doesn’t really make sense at this juncture in the conversation because we have no reason to think that he would otherwise be concerned about perils on the road. He needs to be explaining why he must leave and the reference to perils has nothing to do with that. Oh, and for good measure, we have one more vague reference to “powers greater than our own,” which I am guessing is supposed to be a reference to the Valar, but it is funny how even an Istar cannot name them as such when the time comes. I guess he lacks the conviction to name them, just like Galadriel, but not like Sauron and Adar.
He then follows that up with an odd distinction when Nori says what he talks about sounds like an adventure and he says, “Alone, it’s a journey. Now adventures, they must be shared.” No, I have no idea why the show made this up. I guess the writers should have gotten in their time machine and told Tolkien about this idea. That way, he would not have titled a chapter about Bilbo’s return that he shares with Gandalf “The Return Journey.” He also would not have titled chapters in which Frodo is clearly not alone, “A Journey in the Dark” and “Journey to the Cross-roads.” You know that concept of “The Hero’s Journey” that everyone who has heard of the concept once references in relation to Star Wars? I bet you didn’t know all those stories were about heroes doing things all by themselves. Journey to the Center of the Earth? I guess Jules Verne mistitled it and the translator got it wrong because it isn’t about just one person. Seriously, why did they even bother with this line? Why do they try to be profound when it is clear that they did not have a profound thought in this entire process? When they try to pretend like they can write profundity, they just consistently fail.
Nori claims she has had enough of adventures, sort of like how Ontamo partook of that one skirmish and said he had enough of battle for a lifetime. But it turns out her family is shipping her off anyway. Largo already has a backpack packed for her (which has zero cloth to it, for no apparent reason). By their actions they are basically just saying, “Could you please leave?” Poppy even asks if she has her lantern, which it is quite clear she does not because episode 2 showed us how massive those things are relative to Harfoots, and there is nothing of that size in the backpack, but they want to pretend it’s there, so whatever. All of this is supposed to be them finally understanding her, though I am not sure what she is supposed to do on this adventure. But I guess keeping her around is a reminder that she has undermined the principles behind their entire way of life, as she went off trail and alone, and she didn’t suffer for it. Naturally, that means she must be sent far away. And in the process, the writers will force the connection to make this invented character of theirs the source of Gandalf’s love for the Hobbits. It has nothing to do with how he alone of all the Wise and powerful did not overlook them, that he alone perceived their quality, and that he enjoyed spending time with them. It is because he would not be where he is without a Harfoot who helped him define who he is. We will return to this point shortly.
Honestly, it is hard to care about any of these drawn-out goodbyes because Harfoots are horrible people and there has been so little of emotional significance in this story at all that was not forced by the script. To cap it all off, we even have Poppy saying her second goodbye, this time in slow-motion with a bigger hug. I will say, knowing her history as stated in episode 3 of losing her entire family all at once and having my analysis of her great fear being confirmed here, I at least felt sorry for Poppy when she says, “Why does everyone I love the most always have to go away?” I felt even worse for her after Nori’s completely inappropriate answer: “‘Cause I think if we didn’t, then we’d never learn anything new.” Okay, do we need any further confirmation that Nori is a horrible friend, at least according to how she is actually written? Poppy has asked a question about the people she loves leaving her, and Nori’s answer does not do anything to address Poppy and Poppy’s feelings, but instead talks about “we.” Who is “we”? If we are supposed to accept this as an actual answer to Poppy’s question, it is the people Poppy loves most. Thus, what she is saying is that if the people she loves most didn’t leave her, then the people she loves most would never learn anything new. In other words, she is saying Poppy is holding them back. That’s why her family had to die. And that’s why she needs to leave now. She says nothing about Poppy learning anything new—in which case she would say, “‘Cause I think if we/they didn’t, then you’d never learn anything new”—which would still not be a great answer, but it would make more sense and not be overly confusing by the fact that it keeps a consistent pronoun. In any case, what a terrible and horrifically clunky way to say goodbye to a best friend who has such a deep-seated fear of losing the people she loves.
But before we officially close this plotline for this season, the writers must force another connection to try to derive a false sense of legitimacy. This time, though, it is to the Peter Jackson films with this line that tells us about as straightforwardly as anything else in the show that Off-Brandalf is supposed to be Gandalf: “There’s a sweet smell on the air this way. When in doubt, Elanor Brandyfoot, always follow your nose.” If this was not meant as a Gandalf connection, one must wonder why it was clearly so intentionally made. Well, at least this character is irreconcilable with what Tolkien wrote of Gandalf. That way I can keep them completely separated as the different characters they are. So why is Gandalf here despite the fact that he showed up later by a different way and in a different part of Middle-earth? It is for the same reason that the writers have forced Totally-Not-Hobbits into this story. They thought such things were necessary for a Lord of the Rings story, and so the different pieces must be forced into place even when and where they do not fit.
An Underwhelming Ending to a Horrible Show
The climactic sequence, by which we will finally see some of the things the show is named after, has to be one of the most underwhelming parts of the entire show. There is no special power imbued. There is no special art involved. There is no sense of magic or wonder. It is a straightforward materialistic process. And it is a straightforward materialistic process that makes no sense to boot. After all, we have an alloy that came of melting mithril, gold, and silver together. The products are initially shown as two strips of solid silver and one of solid gold. But then we later see that the rings made from these strips are two solid gold and one solid silver (I am not kidding, here are the strips, and here are the Rings). Besides the contradiction that shows how they could not get details right or notice this basic continuity error that never should have been made in the first place, how did these metals that were melted together to make an alloy supposedly re-separate to make rings that have the appearance of only one of the metals? It is almost as if they did not really think all of this through. As it is, Vilya and Narya were gold (with no hint that mithril was involved) and Nenya, Galadriel’s Ring, was actually made of mithril, not silver. Also, for no apparent reason, the gems that are supposed to be adamant, ruby, and sapphire placed upon the rings are strangely uncut. Why would they not be well fashioned? Who knows? The writers don’t care.
While all of this is going on, we see that Elrond has gone off by himself to the pond, where he finds the scroll. You see, Elrond had a streak going where he has lied or broken trust (whether with broken promises or other treacherous or deceitful action) in every episode he has been in so far. And he was not about to let that streak die in the last episode of the season, so now he breaks the promise that Galadriel was exploiting and shows that he did not trust her. To be fair, she was not trustworthy, but it is just hilarious how little this character we are supposed to think is good cares about integrity. Another strange feature of this whole scene is how when he finds the scroll and walks up the stairs, the music picks up in urgency, all to lead to … nothing. Literally nothing comes of Elrond’s discovery of the scroll. We really could not have this episode end without one more bit of time-wasting and padding.
Before this episode ends at around 67 minutes and 20 seconds, we cut to Halbrand simply walking into Mordor with the volcano in the background (which as we noted before, could not have been Mount Doom with the location given, but which the showrunners desperately want to be Mount Doom) being much more active now. Why is he maintaining this form rather than reverting to one better suited for his being the Dark Lord? Don’t know. And I don’t care because the show is finally over. And as the Verse of the Rings is sung over the credits, the viewer is reminded once again that we have seen none of the other Rings, even though all but the One Ring were made before the Three. Oh well, they had their chance. They failed.
Final Thoughts
I know this has been by far my longest review of the series and I do not want to prolong it too much, so I will keep my closing thoughts relatively brief. I have fulfilled the obligation I placed on myself years ago to review this show. And I do not do reviews for a living, so I do not even have some sort of professional obligation. I will not be returning for season 2. These writers have proven untrustworthy with their material at every turn. They have not only made an adaptation that managed to be worse than The Last Airbender, a feat I never expected to be surpassed. They have also managed to make a show that is just awful in its own right. Instead of taking an approach where what Tolkien wrote served as the outline which they could then fill in the gaps for, which is enough of a challenge, they have replaced Tolkien’s characters, his story, his chronology, and all other sense of space and time that gives Middle-earth its sense of vastness with universally low-quality alternatives. Hearing their answers to criticisms makes it sound more like their approach was to ask, “What can we get away with?” and they answered it wrongly, rather than asking “What would be consistent with what we read?” Changes in adaptation are not inherently bad, and some can even be good for adaptation to a new medium, but these writers have managed to make changes that offer no positive contribution, and are mostly negative across the whole series. And nothing good can come from what they have made. That is why I do not buy the writer’s snake oil assurances that next season will be “more canonical.” This type of statement shows that they are not even aware of what they have done. With the foundation of season 1, they have fundamentally broken with the story at far too many points so that any efforts to make the show “more canonical” are now far too late. I went over how the chronology is fundamentally broken in my episode 3 review; there is no recovering from that. I have gone over how the characters are fundamentally broken, especially from an adaptational perspective; there is no recovering from that. I have gone over how their alternative to Tolkien’s story is built upon contrivances piled on top of contrivances in attempts to make up for how much they are deviating from Tolkien but still need to get to certain destinations by contorted means; there is no recovering from that. Any series built on the foundation of season 1 cannot stand, any more than a building with a solid second floor will last if its first floor is structurally unsound. And we have already seen how terrible these writers are at storytelling, plot development, characterization, cause and effect (including without relying upon contrivances), setup and payoff, worldbuilding, dialogue, consistency across multiple fronts, keeping timelines straight and sensible, spatial awareness (in terms of being clear on where things are located, how far apart they are, and how long it takes to traverse distances), pacing, and so on. These writers may improve in some respects with more experience, but not enough that they can actually fix season 1 by writing a better season 2, and not enough to save the series as a whole. They needed high-quality work on season 1 and they did not achieve that. All the money in the world could not give them what they needed most. And given how they have processed criticism thus far, I would never put any hope in them meaningfully improving anyway. In any case, they would need to start over from scratch, which would involve a show whose subsequent seasons undermine the foundations of season 1, meaning that the show would lack basic integrity.
I am aware that shows do not always start strong. Not every show can be Daredevil or Stranger Things. Among the classic Star Trek shows, only the original Star Trek had an especially strong first season (though DS9 had one of the best episodes of any Star Trek in its first season). Star Trek: The Next Generation has a notoriously bad first season. There are a couple episodes that reach what I would call the “baseline” level of quality for TNG as a whole, but otherwise, the episodes are varying levels of bad. But even if you start with season 1 of TNG (which I did not), I think there would be reason to continue because the foundation was not fundamentally rotten (and they actually did make changes among the writing staff as well). There were generally good ideas, but the execution was almost always bad. There could be interesting setups, but the payoffs were lackluster. And the show was still trying to figure out its identity, being the first live-action Star Trek series since the 60s. And it also benefited from being a series with episodic storytelling, rather than one built on interconnected season-long story arcs. If an episode was bad, there was a chance with the right writers that the next episode could be better. Perhaps most importantly, it had a decent cast of likable and interesting characters that were only going to get better. ROP, being an adaptation rather than an original intellectual property, being a series that does rely on interconnected season-long story arcs, and being run by writers that have not demonstrated an ability to do anything in particular well, has none of these potential benefits to fall back on. And I remind you that this is the most expensive show ever made. It can ill afford to faceplant out of the gate and not be the most successful show to stream amidst its considerably less expensive competition when it comes out, nor to outperform them at a level roughly proportional to the cost (which it is not, especially after having lost ~40% of its audience between airing the first two episodes and episode 3, and after losing its #1 spot on Amazon Prime eight days after the first season ended to a show that received almost no hype comparatively).
In the end, I must ask: if this show did not have “The Lord of the Rings” in the title and was not clearly relying on connection to the story of LOTR in some capacity, is there anything in this show that would keep people coming back to it? People who have never read LOTR enjoy Peter Jackson’s film trilogy as a film trilogy and come back to it despite having no particular interest in (much less passion for) Tolkien’s original story. No matter what one concludes about the adaptation quality of those films (and believe me, I plan to go over that next year), they are films worth watching in their own right. But what staying power does the show itself have that does not rely on its connection with another work? And even if you somehow think it is a show worth watching regardless of its reliance on LOTR and the audience built by it, do you think the quality of the show justifies the massive expenditure to bring it to life?
As I have endeavored to demonstrate through dissertation-length scrutinizing of ROP, this show cannot survive scrutiny. It is but a Potemkin village with Tolkien’s name scrawled across it without the substance that he gave to the stories the show relies upon for name recognition. If you have not watched this show, my recommendation is that you do not watch this season or any future season. If you have watched the first season like I did, I recommend not giving Amazon any more views from here on.