(avg. read time: 47–95 mins.)
Episode 7
Between the fallout from episode 6 and the need to resume the other plotlines, how will the show recover? I am not convinced that it can, but the man given the responsibility of getting the show on track is a writer named Jason Cahill. Cahill also helped write episode 3 (“Adar”), so this more recent experience tells us more about his capabilities for his series than the rest of his writing resume (which is more extensive than any other writer who has worked on this show, including work as far back as some episodes of ER, NYPD Blue, and The Sopranos). Despite being the most experienced writer thus far, it seems that he cannot escape the many follies that afflict every script of this show.
Surviving the Impossible
The episode wastes no time opening with the impossible survival. In fact, judging from what we see later, most of everyone who was in the village who was not initially killed by the fireballs survived the pyroclastic flow. We see a few people who died and others who are on fire (including a horse), and the frames of the buildings are on fire, but almost everyone survived this, maybe with some burns or other wounds. All of our named characters but one survived as well, and they have shockingly light scathing (Halbrand will turn out to be wounded, but it is not clear how he got that particular wound from the fallout). I knew this show would utilize some rather powerful plot armor, but I did not expect that this plot armor would cover most of everybody, including the nameless and those who were not even wearing armor. Of course, this includes Galadriel, who is no worse for wear, except that she looks like she is covered in Cheeto dust. The effects of this pyroclastic flow are wildly inconsistent and seem rather to be dictated by what the writer and showrunners decided should be the situation for everyone involved. Why did anyone die out in the open apparently instantly if most people survived this? Don’t know. Why are some on fire and not others? Don’t know. Why did the advice to seek shelter actually make people less likely to survive since they died from the wood crashing down on them rather than from the extreme heat or suffocation from ash? Don’t know. By the way, that is how the useless Ontamo dies. Valandil was able to survive underneath the wreckage of a building, but Ontamo did not. Why? Don’t know. It’s not explained visually or verbally. The queen is able to tell right away that he’s dead. What was the point of showing us that this pyroclastic flow was of such intensity that it incinerated buildings instantly and produced lightning strikes, along with the fireballs that went before it? I guess the showrunners thought it looked cool. Because how it looks is more important than what it means.
Also, for anyone who wants to describe this show as “uplifting,” assuming you still harbor that false impression this far into the season, could you please explain to me why this opening sequence involves multiple people walking past others who are clearly in need of help and not doing anything for them? When Valandil is trapped under a collapsed building, multiple people walk right past him before named characters help him. But more importantly, this callousness includes Galadriel. You see, Galadriel found Theo on his feet and decided to walk away with him. You can literally hear people screaming in the background … and she just walks away, as if to say, “ignore that; we have tried nothing and determined that there’s nothing we can do.”
There is also a short sequence in here where Míriel plays the hero by going into a burning building (while Isildur props up the structure) to save some people in there. This is a forced moment that makes little sense when she has two people there with her, one of whom could hold the opening and the other of whom could go in. But I guess the writer wanted Míriel to do something while she was here, but he could not think of anything more natural and logical. Surely, no Númenórean would actually stand by and let the queen go into such a precarious situation. But they will when the writers will it. Even the laws of physics bend to the will of the writers, as Míriel gets thrown/pulled out of a collapsing building despite nothing in the scene actually being able to accomplish this (no one actually touches her). This also leads to Isildur being caught under the burning structure while it all collapses on top of him. And he is left there. There is no reason he should survive this. But because he is Isildur, he must survive this in order for him to claim the One Ring later. The only explanation can be because of plot armor. And what is the justification for this fake peril for a character we know will survive? Don’t know. Because there can be no justification.
Harfoots Going Hungry?
With that, we cut to the Harfoots, who talk as if they are arriving at the Grove. What is odd about this opening is that there is apparently some confusion as to if they are there or not. They’ve misidentified the location previously, but Nori has to say she remembers the place. It is just clunky introductory dialogue that the writer could somehow not surpass with any other ideas. I thought the Harfoots come to this place every year as part of the migration pattern. And haven’t the older Harfoots been traveling this path for longer? So why would there be any such confusion?
In any case, the back of the pack arrives to see that there’s been a bit of burning through the Grove. It is not all of the trees or even most of the trees, but there is a streak in the middle that was burned. How’d it get burned? We see that it was from a volcano becoming active and shooting fireballs. You see, the writers are not done demonstrating their inability to understand maps. This location is no less than 350 miles (since it is near what will later be known as Mirkwood) from where the last episode supposedly took place. It is no less than 250 miles from the actual location of Orodruin/Mount Doom (remember that we also have that disparity). How in the world did one fireball travel so far and over a mountain range in between just to set a little fire? Don’t know. It makes no sense. You would think that more things in the area would catch fire and that the fire would spread (since this is not supposed to be a controlled burning), but the writer could not think of a more competent way to put the Harfoots in a desperate situation or to make it actually look like a desperate situation. Besides, Nori described the Grove as “a whole orchard” in episode 5, as problematic as that description is, and said it was full of bar apples, plums, apricots, carrots, and so on. Yet the only fruits we see are apples. Oh well. The writers don’t care about their own scripts. Why should I?
The whole desperate situation is contrived so that Asteroid Man can (theoretically) come to the rescue. He puts his hands on one of the trees and starts chanting to do … something. There is no way to account for how magic works in this show, except as a convenience for the writers. In this case, the writer wants a scene where Asteroid Man’s magic seems damaging again only for it to turn out at a later, dramatically convenient time to be beneficial. In fact, to further solidify this idea, there is a point where Nori’s little sister, Dilly, steps forward to look at the tree when there is obviously a lot of cracking going on, and ultimately a large branch comes loose and falls. Before it does, Nori tells her to “get back.” What does she do to get her back? She tackles her forward. You see, Nori is a highly intelligent character, and she knew that if she did the opposite of what she said, she would put her and her sister in the way of danger, but at just the right spot where they would not actually be hurt by anything. And even though them getting in the way of something dangerous was entirely their fault, the show presents it as if the Harfoots now look on Asteroid Man with terror and suspicion.
Durin III Is Not Convinced and We Should Not Be Either
The scene then shifts to Khazad-dûm. Elrond has come to make a deal with Durin III for the mithril. He claims to offer “something sacred” since the Elves are asking for “something sacred” from the Dwarves. Specifically, he offers game, grain, and timber from the elder forests of Eriador for the next five centuries. Why is it just the next five centuries when the Elves are asking for something that would (supposedly, according to the absurd claims of the show) help them maintain their immortality? Don’t know. You would think it might be an offer of permanent trade in light of the stakes involved. You would also think they would offer something more significant. But the show is never going to explain this line that is only here for filler, so let’s just move on.
Durin III is naturally suspicious of Elrond, and he asks him why he should trust any Elf. Before we get to Elrond’s humdinger of an answer, I feel the need to highlight something. We know that Elrond and Durin IV are supposed to be best friends and that they met outside of Khazad-dûm. The thing about best friends is, as long as it is possible, they will tend to meet each other’s families at some point. Why, then, does Durin III act like Elrond is practically a stranger? And why does Elrond act as if they have no past familiarity? Also, we later hear that Durin has a brother (yes, we hear that for the first time near the end of this episode, though we never see him), yet Elrond and Durin never mention him, and Elrond expresses no interest in his brother. What’s up with that? Seriously, something smells rotten about this idea that Elrond and Durin IV are best friends. Of course, we know it is the scripts that are rotten.
Anyway, Elrond’s reply to Durin III’s question about why he should trust any Elf needs to be quoted in full: “You should not. But you can trust me. For I am no common Elf, but Elrond Half-elven. And I see in Elves that which they cannot see in themselves.” One, why in the world is Elrond throwing his whole race under the bus like this? It is not as if all Elves are like his leaders who he is backhanding with these comments. Two, what is it that he can see in Elves that they are blind to? Don’t know. The writer doesn’t care. Three, why is he so self-important and what difference does it make that he is “no common Elf”? Four, his central point that “You can trust me” is laughable in the extreme. In literally every episode Elrond has appeared in, he has lied to or broken trust with someone. He lied to Galadriel about getting her an audience with the king and even went along with his plot to ship her out of Middle-earth. We will find out later that he acted deceitfully with Durin IV in the contest from episode 2. He also lied in that episode in saying that he came to see his friend, not because he wanted something. He said a similar lie in episode 4 to Durin IV again, and engaged in deceit by making Disa think he left Khazad-dûm before sneaking back in to spy on Durin. He broke the oath he swore to Durin in the next episode multiple times in multiple ways. Then he will be treacherous again later in this episode by acting in a way that undermines the king. And let us not forget that he spent the last twenty years not being a dependable friend to Durin because he made no contact with him over that time. He might just be the least trustworthy, least dependable character in the whole show. Come off it, you dollar-store knock-off of a good Tolkien character.
We also see that Elrond brought a leaf from that tree in Lindon as a visual demonstration of the need. I sure hope he explained the metaphysical connection between the tree and the Elves for Durin III because the show has not done that for the audience. Regardless, if I was in Durin III’s shoes, I would wonder what reason I have to think Elrond is telling the truth rather than passing on a lie. Why should I think this leaf is supposed to be indicative of anything to do with the fate of the Elves? Why should I believe the claim that the Elves need a vast amount of this ore by the spring? Such basic questions as we would expect Durin to ask have not been answered for the audience. And if they have been answered for him, they have been answered offscreen. Really, we know the writers have no idea how to justify and explain these things.
Durin III has Elrond leave and he talks with his son alone. When Durin IV asks what his answer is going to be, Durin III’s answer is … typically roundabout for a script that is trying in vain to sound like Tolkien:
It is said that when Aulë created our people, he crafted us of two elements. Fire and rock. The rock that lives within us hungers for the eternal, resisting the pull of time. But the fire embraces truth. That all things must one day be consumed and fade away to ash…. We do not dig in earth that cannot support it. Delving into depths beyond the darkness. Tempting shadow, rock, and mine to bury us all beneath the mountain. I will not risk Dwarven lives to help the Elves cheat death.
The last sentence is an entirely reasonable response and one I can understand from his perspective. But why did he have to dilly-dally so much prior to it? The whole thing about the manner in which “Aulë” (again, the Dwarves are supposed to call him “Mahal,” particularly with other Dwarves) created them is made up for the show and it is clear. The writer wanted to force it in apropos of nothing, particularly since the Elves were obviously not made in the same way they were (they were also actually made to be immortal, but the showrunners want to ignore that for their sake of their contrived plot). This is another case of the writers of this series thinking that the key to epic, high fantasy, and sounding like Tolkien is speaking indirectly for the sake of it, to the level that they lose their way to the point they were trying to make. That is also the case here. If he just dropped this opening altogether, this dialogue would not be missing anything. He could have actually gotten more directly to the point and said something about how it is not such a big deal if the Elves become mortal like the Dwarves are (as absurd as such an idea actually is in Tolkien’s sub-creation). Heck, Elrond would probably still outlive Durin IV if he were to become mortal.
The scene goes on a little more after this, but it is just more of Durin IV being overly dramatic about the urgency and severity of the situation (his friend is not going to die soon, he is just going to inevitably die eventually like he will, based on the stakes established in this show) and Durin III indirectly saying that the Valar decided their fate long ago (which he did not need to say, since he could have just taken responsibility for his decision). This then leads to Durin IV returning home and talking things over with Disa, who is forging an axe … for some reason. (Also that forge is just up some stairs from their dining room without even a wall to separate them … for some reason.) She has the idea to reopen the mine in defiance of Durin III and force his hand by showing the mithril can be safely mined. It is one thing for Disa to be supportive, but it is another thing for her to undermine his father as the king. For this reason, Durin IV rightly shoots down her idea and says he does not want to set a bad example for children. If he cannot uphold the will of the king, how can he expect them to do so when he is the king? Yeah, all of this checks out. Too bad it will be abandoned later. Nothing good can stay in this show, I guess.
In fact, Durin’s commitment to this principle will not even last to the end of this scene. Elrond walks in and Durin just gives him a look, which Elrond clearly understands. But how did Elrond not hear about this sooner? You would think he would be waiting just outside the chambers and would have asked one of the Durins immediately afterwards. But Durin somehow left the chamber, went however far it is to his home, and was able to talk with his wife for a bit before Elrond got any idea of how the conversation between the Durins went. In any case, the writer wanted to save the scene for this moment, so it is saved for this moment apropos of nothing.
Durin tries to get Elrond to stay for dinner, but Elrond says he cannot stay because Gil-galad must be informed, “And soon, he will no longer be a king, for there will no longer be a Lindon.” Goodness. Nothing about this line made sense. There will still be a Lindon because the land will still be there, even if it becomes abandoned. And it is not as if Gil-galad is going to die soon so that, in that sense, he will no longer be king. If he had said he needed to inform him so he could leave for the Undying Lands, that would be one thing, but that is not what is said. Also, there is absolutely no reason Elrond cannot stay for dinner. He acts like this is so urgent that he needs to leave immediately. But, as we established in the episode 5 review, it is a weeks-long trip from Khazad-dûm to Lindon. Staying a few more hours, or even the night, is not going to make a real difference in the grand scheme of things. At least, that would be the case if this writer had any more awareness of maps than the other writers for this show. (There is also a brief exchange here where Elrond says the Elves say Namarië rather than “goodbye,” as the former means more than “farewell” but “Go towards goodness.” I would be curious where such an idea came from, since it is not in LOTR, nor is it in any book I have read from Tolkien. Perhaps its more literal meaning might be, “be well.” The “go towards” does not clearly represent an element here. I’m just not sure why this addition needed to be made.)
Something else to highlight during this whole scene is how emotional Durin gets (as in barely choking back tears emotional). It is incredibly overblown. It is not as if his friend is going to die tomorrow or anytime soon and that he is powerless to stop it. That would be the sort of situation that might make his emotional state comprehensible. But his friend is just going to become mortal like him and will probably outlive him. And again, the writer is asking us to believe that this Durin is the one who had such control over his emotions that he was apparently able to lie convincingly to Gil-galad about the table in episode 5.
But the aspect of this scene that requires the most comment is the contrived setup where Durin had laid down the leaf Elrond brought on the corner of his table and in a bout of frustration and sadness Durin slides the piece of mithril across the table in the direction of the leaf. Why did he slide it in the direction of the leaf? Don’t know. It seems he could have dropped it, thrown it, or even it just slid it directly across from him. But if he did not slide the mithril to that particular spot, he might never have learned that the mithril does actually work for the purpose Elrond wants it. Because once the mithril gets close to the leaf with the tree cancer on it, it immediately heals the leaf’s decay and, as far as we see in this episode, it does so permanently. This prompts Durin to call Elrond back. Why did this whole experiment not occur to Elrond back in Lindon? Don’t know. It would seem that if he wanted to test the idea that the mithril could actually work for the purposes Gil-galad and Celebrimbor wanted it to, which would actually go a long way towards showing if the venture was worthwhile or not, he had an opportunity to test it there. Instead, we had to waste time arriving at this conclusion. One skill every writer on this show seems to share is in wasting time.
But of course, this interaction of mithril with the decay raises questions that I doubt the writers are prepared to answer. By implication that one small piece of mithril has this kind of effect, shouldn’t Elrond be better off than anyone else? He’s carried that piece with him for who knows how many weeks now. I would think he would have practically developed immunity to the effects of the decay, considering how quickly we saw the mithril heal the leaf. And does it only require proximity on one occasion to work? After all, the leaf never goes back to decaying, no matter how far away it gets from the piece of mithril. Why would it not be sufficient for Elrond to take this one piece of mithril and just pass it around among the Elves or just set it next to the decay on the tree? Why wouldn’t everything be fine if they did that? Maybe the writers just haven’t thought this out because this whole setup is a contrivance to move this mithril plotline along, since the showrunners wanted mithril and they wanted the Balrog to be featured.
A Most Contrived Pairing
Now we’re back in Mordor (though that name will not be given until the end of the episode in a low-effort font change on the most expensive show ever made). We see that the Orcs survived the pyroclastic flow, too. It makes you wonder why they did not kill their enemies while they were vulnerable. Are we supposed to think that the Orcs are too honorable for that? Or did the writer simply not think of the practicalities of this whole scenario? Based on everything we have seen thus far—including the fact that the Orcs were even able to survive this disaster—I’m sure you can guess which one it is.
But the Orcs are not the focus of this scene. That distinction goes to Galadriel and Theo, who are off by themselves scouting out the area. Frankly, there was so much goofy going on in the opening that I did not even think to comment on a particular point until now. Why in the world are Galadriel and Theo going off by themselves? It makes no sense. There is no particular bond between them. They never even spoke to each other before this episode. Yet Galadriel decides to leave the ruins of the village once she finds him. It is almost as if the writer has forced them together apropos of nothing so that they can say poorly written dialogue to each other. There is no reason for them to leave everyone behind, and they are portrayed as leaving before everyone else does, although they are obviously not the only ones showing signs of life in the beginning. There is no reason they could not have gone back with the group because there is no reason they would not have regrouped with everyone to sound off on who is not dead.
You see, this whole plotline is supposed to give the illusion of a character arc for Galadriel. She supposedly realizes her faults, but she is actually wrong about them. She does a complete about-face on many points of her dialogue in this series for no reason. There is no justification for the ersatz transformation she undergoes; there is only a difference between moment A and moment B, and the writer just wants us to fill in the blanks for ourselves because he is not paid to do it. I am not saying we need an explicit word-for-word explanation as to why she is suddenly saying things inconsistent with her character to this point, but we do need something. We will discuss specific examples as we go.
In fact, this first scene of them outside of the village is contrived just for their dialogue. There is no reason they should be stopping here and looking at the Orcs. They should have been gone from these parts already. The Orcs are not even in their way. But they needed to stop here so that Galadriel could tell Theo that it is over and that they need to fall back. And this is all set up for Theo to insist to Galadriel that what has happened is not her fault and for her to say, “Yes, it is.” Well, she is at fault for not inquiring about what was in the bundle at all, since that allowed Adar’s plan to work. But if—through the many contrivances of the plot—she had not brought the Númenóreans, all the Southlanders would be dead and everything else still would have happened. She is at fault for many things over the course of this series, including for putting Númenórean lives at risk because of her carelessness with the decoy bundle, but the one thing she accepts fault for is actually not primarily her fault. Theo is more at fault for actually giving the sword-key to Adar, but Arondir is even more at fault since he did absolutely none of the following to prevent Adar’s plan from going into motion: 1) obscure the carving; 2) fill in or otherwise ruin the key hole with things that cannot be easily extracted (since it is in the ground); 3) destroy the upper bridge leading to and from the watchtower; 4) hide the sword-key in a place other than the worst place he could have thought of; 5) talked with Galadriel about the bundle once she returned or paid any attention to the fact that the bundle he was given was not at all like the bundle he tried to hide earlier. Without all of these distinct bouts of stupidity, this plot could not have moved forward in the way McKay and Payne decreed it should. But naturally, the showrunners are not going to blame Arondir for not doing hardly anything to prevent this, are they?
Meanwhile … also in the Southlands…
We then cut to the rest of the survivors, minus Halbrand, Arondir, and Bronwyn, since the writer believes in pointlessly creating suspense about what happened to them. They will, of course, be fine and this whole scene shows us why. From the size of the crowd and from the size of the camp we will see later, it appears as if almost everyone survived the pyroclastic flow. Sure, some people died, and some are maimed or wounded, but it was nothing like Pompeii in that village (although by all accounts it probably should have been as bad or worse). They are in such good shape that almost all of them are able to walk back however long it is to the camp and make it there before Galadriel and Theo, even though the latter two left before this group possibly could have, are not encumbered by the need to go slowly for the weaker folks, and Galadriel knows where the camp is (so it is not as if she got lost). That further highlights how forced the situation between Galadriel and Theo is. But don’t worry, things will get worse.
Elendil was one of the people leading this company back to camp, as we see him stopped to make sure everyone gets where they are going. You would think his first priority would have been to figure out where his son is and that his second priority would have been to figure out where the queen is. Yet he somehow organized this march of hundreds over however many miles and only after however long it has been does he stop and see if he can find Isildur. And he does not even look for the queen. She just shows up with Valandil, the guy who happens to say nothing to Elendil about her condition. Elendil does not even try to go back to find Isildur’s body (since he is assuming that Isildur is dead and he should be, but we know, canonically, he cannot be), but he does let the queen get on his horse and notices absolutely nothing about the strange way she is behaving (of course, we will come back to this later). What happened to Elendil’s priorities that would have made sense to anyone? I would say, “ask the writer,” but I doubt the writer knows.
Amazon Galadriel 2.0: Not Exactly Better Than 1.0
Then we are back with the pointless side-plot of Galadriel and Theo. Theo asks her if “everyone” is dead, including Arondir and Bronwyn. She responds, “What cannot be known hollows the mind. Fill it not with guesswork.” Oh look, another example of the writers of this show trying to turn characters (especially Galadriel) into pseudo-profound proverb spouts rather than characters who converse in sensible ways, since the writers think indirect dialogue for the sheer sake of it is the mark of epic and high fantasy. Apart from that general issue, there are three problems with this line. One, both of these characters know better than to think everyone died. They do not know who all is alive, but they themselves saw other people impossibly lived through the eruption. Two, it is the least helpful kind of response to his question because it means, “Just don’t think about it because there is no way to know.” Obviously, there is a way to know, they just will not know for a while. Honestly, if she just said, “I do not know, but we will learn soon enough when we arrive at the Númenóreans’ camp,” this problem would not exist in this dialogue. Is there a reason she did not think to say this, except that the writer didn’t think about it? In fact, the very next sentence she says about where they are going should have been part of her answer to his initial question. Three, she has spent centuries and practically every episode prior to this relying on guesswork, especially regarding Halbrand, where they needed to go in the Southlands, and so on. After all, guesswork is how people operate a lot of the time, for both good and ill. Only now when a character asks a question that is more easily answerable by just waiting to see, she rolls out this nonsense.
The rest of the dialogue in the scene provides yet more sloppiness. First, Galadriel says, “And be wary. The Orcs will move in daylight now.” Why did she say daylight when the light is obviously obscured by the ash cloud? It would have been much more sensible for her to say daytime, but the writer could not get this basic point right.
Second, Theo says, “I’ve killed Orcs before, you know,” to which Galadriel responds, “When I was your age, there was no such thing as Orcs.” Well that was apropos of nothing. Why does that matter to anything? Why can you not converse like a normal person of any race? And of course, Theo only just killed Orcs today or yesterday (whenever this is) at the tail end of that battle. Literally, that is all of his experience. Also, this is not actually accurate to Tolkien’s lore. Melkor/Morgoth first took Elves to corrupt them into Orcs before Oromë ever encountered them and brought some of them to Aman. There definitely were Orcs that existed before Galadriel was born (which was well after some of the Elves came to Aman). There would not have been a problem from the lore perspective if she had simply said, “When I was your age, I had never even heard of Orcs.” It still would have been a bad line in this context, but it would have removed an unnecessary problem the writer has caused by lack of diligence.
Third, Galadriel tells Theo that she has killed many Orcs and Theo says this is a good thing, but she says, “It darkens the heart, [sic.] to call dark deeds ‘good.’ It gives place for evil to thrive inside us. Every war is fought both without and within. Of that, every soldier must be mindful. Even I. Even you.” Here is further confirmation that we are now dealing with Amazon Galadriel 2.0 who bears only a resemblance in appearance to Amazon Galadriel 1.0. In literally the last episode she was threatening to torture and exterminate the Orcs. Nothing has happened in the last several hours (or however long it has been) to make her think otherwise about killing Orcs (something she all too happily and poorly instructed people in doing two episodes ago). In no way whatsoever at any point in this series has she acted like a reluctant warrior. It is not as if she showed any regret about things she “had” to do in the last episode. She showed no remorse at killing the Snow-Troll in episode 1. And by the way, while Tolkien may have regarded war as something that is not good, but which can be necessary, the idea that he would have called killing these drone servants of evil masters “dark deeds” is laughable. Frankly, they don’t give you much of a choice. Look what they did to the people of pre-Mordor to this point. When they are in force, they are not just going to leave you alone.
Fourth, Theo takes her last remark as an implication that he is a soldier. Galadriel affirms him by giving him a sword, a sword he will try to draw too loudly because he is not smart with swords and almost gets them caught later. Why does she do this anyway? Don’t know. And why are we, the audience, supposed to care? Don’t know. These are terrible individuals in their different ways, we have been given no reason to care about them as individuals, there is nothing that makes us connect with either of them, neither are likable, and neither are admirable. They are simply two characters we are forced to watch by virtue of watching this show. Why are we supposed to care when they have moments like this?
The Queen Is Blind (Literally This Time)
Elsewhere in Mordor, we see the caravan continuing on. The only reason we have this scene is because the writer decided to unnecessarily delay a supposedly big reveal. The queen is now blind, you see. She was not blinded by the ash she must have gotten in her eyes nor the blast of heat that came with the pyroclastic flow, but by the embers that fell in her eyes from the fire where she tried to rescue people (which, again, she did not need to do herself and the Númenóreans have no reason to abide her risking herself in this way). It is sort of like escaping from a collapsed building and not being injured at all only to be hobbled by stubbing your toe on some debris. Also, Valandil never said anything to Elendil about this, even though it should be obvious to the latter that she is acting strangely by walking with her hand on his shoulder and staring directly ahead. He did not notice when she could not mount a horse by herself. He did not notice when she almost took a twig to the eye. In fact, he presumably would not have noticed her being blind at all if she had not said something. He would have had so many signals to this effect, but he ignored them all until the writer decided he needed to learn. Míriel insists that her blindness be kept a secret from everyone else. But why? Why does this matter? There is no reason to think it would have an effect on everyone’s morale. And if it we are supposed to buy that it would, maybe Valandil should have thought of that back in the village and not let her put herself at risk. But don’t worry, even this same writer in this same episode will not take seriously the idea that she needs to hide her blindness.
Asteroid Man and the Ungrateful Harfoots
Now that the writer has decided we have spent enough time in Mordor, we need to go back to the Harfoots. We learn here that the Grove is near Greenwood the Great (what will later be called Mirkwood), since that is what Sadoc tells Asteroid Man “they” call it. Oh joy, yet more needless confusion about where things are. When they left the forest earlier, the map seemed to indicate that they were actually leaving the southern edge of that forest to go somewhere else, but now apparently the Grove is near there too. But it does not make sense to say that it is just near a different part of the forest because the Harfoots’ migration took them so far from the forest, as they went through what will become the Dead Marshes (called the “Grey Marshes” on the map they show in episode 5). They are not heading far north in their migration, nor are they ever crossing the Anduin, so the “old forest” that Nori referenced that they were leaving from could not have been Fangorn or what would become Lórien. I guess the writers just do not pay attention to Tolkien’s maps or to the maps others make for them. They haven’t paid attention in literally any episode of this show so far, so why start now when the first season is almost over? But don’t worry, it will get worse.
Sadoc tells Asteroid Man that his people have not seen those stars he is looking for since over a thousand years ago when his ancestors lived in “parts unknown.” I guess the implication is, then, that the book of his, or at least information within it, is over a thousand years old. And it appears that this is the last bit of information we will get related to it (at least for this season, and I will not be watching next season). Sadoc also has an odd line here where he says over a thousand years is a long time to wander, “even for a fellow with big legs.” What does that have to do with anything? Don’t know. The writer likely didn’t put any thought into it. The lines are here only for the purpose of sending Asteroid Man off to Greenwood the Great and one of the Man villages he can find there.
Also, only now, for the purpose of dramatic timing, do we see the tiniest blossom form on the backside of the tree Asteroid Man was chanting to earlier. If there is one thing we learned from that über-important tree in Lindon, it is that trees respect dramatic timing. They will only act as the writers decree that they do. There’s no other reason for the delayed reaction or the speed at which it acts later to heal the whole tree. But this show is not here for you to think about.
As Asteroid Man makes his way out of the Harfoots’ camp with everyone acting like this is regrettably necessary, as if he is too dangerous, we get one last interaction between him and Nori. What does Nori do to thank Asteroid Man for literally saving her and her family’s lives, for bringing their cart all these hundreds of miles, and not even asking for anything in return? One apple. That’s right; she gives him one apple to send him on his way. She could not have packed anything for him. She gives him one apple for what will be a significant journey alone out into the forest he is completely unfamiliar with. This is supposed to be a sweet gesture, as driven home by the music’s desperate appeal for you to care, but it falls flat if you give any thought to how this plotline has progressed.
The following scene where Nori goes on about her regret is just contrived to move the story along. She and her family would not be here at all if it was not for him. She has learned nothing new to make her regretful now. She knew from the beginning how potentially dangerous she was, and she still forged on as long as the plot required her to do so. But once the plot required her to flip 180°, you better believe she flipped the 180°. She even says here, “I’m just a Harfoot. That’s all I’ll ever be.” Frankly, that’s an awfully denigrating thing to say to her mother, as if she is resigned sadly to some pitiable fate which is just being like her mother and everyone else (excluding Asteroid Man) she has ever known. It also does not make sense as a line expressing such resignation, since there was never potential for her to be something other than a Harfoot. It would have made more sense if she said something like, “I’m just a little girl in a big world, and that’s all I’ll ever be.” But the writers, no matter who they are, seem insistent on taking a worse alternative anytime they have a choice.
Where Is Celeborn? And Other Things Handled Incompetently
And now we must talk about what is probably the most notorious scene from this awful episode. It will be dissected not only for its sins against adaptation of Tolkien, but also for its failings as a scene unto itself. What lights the fuse on this explosion of trash is Theo asking Galadriel if she ever lost anyone close to her. We already knew she was going to mention Finrod. But completely out of left field, apropos of nothing, she also says that she lost her husband, who she later says was named Celeborn. Yes, Galadriel is under the impression that Celeborn is dead or at least missing. And the writer and his overlords expect us to buy this. Even though Celeborn is alive in LOTR, even though there is no Celebrían without Celeborn, even though without Celebrían there would be no Arwen (or her brothers Elladan and Elrohir). They want us to pretend that this is a real possibility before they reveal that he was alive all along, instead of being more faithful to what Tolkien wrote.
Why did the writers think this obvious cul-de-sac of a plotline about Celeborn’s apparent death was needed? One, like the many other narratival cul-de-sacs we have noted throughout this series, it takes up time. Two, it allows Galadriel to be unencumbered, without obligation, so that the writers can send her on this mind-numbing quest they wrote in place of Tolkien’s story of the Second Age. That, and I guess they seriously wanted people on Twitter and Reddit to “ship” Galadriel and Halbrand (who may or may not be Sauron), even though the idea is detestable from an adaptation perspective, especially if Halbrand actually turns out to be Sauron. The writers falsely thought that Celeborn was an obstacle to telling Galadriel’s story (though it was, truly, an obstacle to the excremental story they have told in its stead) and that her agency was limited by her marriage, which it most obviously was not if you actually read Tolkien’s work (whether LOTR, Unfinished Tales, or so on). Indeed, she actually left Middle-earth before him on the same voyage as Frodo, though Celeborn would eventually follow her after a time of ruling the Galadhrim in East Lórien and dwelling in Rivendell with Elrond’s sons.
[Update after the season finale: Rather than retract this claim that I was wrong about, since Halbrand is Sauron, I want it to be on record that I was wrong. I want it to be on record that I gave these writers the slightest benefit of the doubt about this major mystery of theirs and I was wrong. I want it to be on record that these writers cannot be trusted, even when given this slightest benefit of the doubt. This is one major reason why I will not be returning for season 2.]
From a lore perspective, this claim is obviously impossible to reconcile, as has been the case for so much in this show. Celeborn and Galadriel were never separated for this long, even when Celeborn held off on voyaging to the Undying Lands (where he had never been). They had met in the First Age, as the show also indicates, but they remained together throughout the following millennia, including when they reigned in Lindon and Eregion (the latter according to Unfinished Tales rather than LOTR) before the end of the first millennium in the Second Age, and, of course, they eventually reigned in Lothlórien. There is no gap for this story to take place in.
But even from the perspective of the show itself, this move by the writers does not make sense. Perhaps the one thing that does make sense in light of what they have shown us of Amazon Galadriel is that her last interaction with her husband was one of her chiding him for having ill-fitting armor and looking like a silver clam, since only she can do anything right and her husband has to be made to appear worse for it (although in Tolkien’s story, Celeborn, as the grand-nephew of the king of the realm that would be called Doriath and a prince of the same realm, had fought against the forces of Morgoth before Galadriel ever came to Beleriand). Even before her husband risks his life in going off to battle, she cannot resist being a jerk. Apart from that element, this does not make sense in the context of the show. Why did Galadriel not mention losing Celeborn in the opening narration? Why is her brother’s death so profoundly motivating that she will go on a quest spanning many centuries to kill Sauron in retribution, but her husband’s apparent death does not even warrant a mention? Why would she wait until now to even mention him? Apart from the opening narration, she could have mentioned him in episode 1 when she was talking with Elrond. She could have mentioned him in episode 5 when she was supposed to go over her motivation. The writers could have composed a number of scenes where it would have been appropriate for her to mention her husband, but he is thrown in here as practically an afterthought. The conversation actually moves in a new direction apropos of nothing after she mentions Celeborn, as Theo does not seem to care to learn more about him, but instead wants to talk about himself. She carries no memento of him (unlike Finrod). She has spoken with no one about him, except this kid who is a complete stranger. And when she does speak of him, she is not even acting like this was something that was too painful for her to recount for anyone else (since that would again raise the question of why she would divulge this information to Theo of all people).
Of course, this writer, under direction from his overlords, wants to pretend to be clever. You see, the way Galadriel describes Celeborn’s fate is to say, “I never saw him again after that.” It is an ambiguity that the writers want to exploit later so that they can vainly try to backtrack and save face after acting as if Celeborn is dead for all intents and purposes, a change to the story that I imagine they were aware would be received as well as a fart in church (unless they just do not care and are, in fact, spitting on Tolkien’s story with the change of him actually being dead). Most likely, the plan is to later write it so that Celeborn has only been missing for that long and the two characters will be reunited somewhere down the line. That idea is trash, but so are any other alternatives they could do to try to clean up this mess. They could, of course, exploit something Tolkien included in his world-building of Elves being able to reincarnate (e.g., Glorfindel) so that they can have their cake and eat it, too. But introducing that without explanation in this story makes this move appear cheap and contrived. It will also raise questions that the showrunners are not prepared to address—such as why Galadriel continues her quest for vengeance when Finrod has already been reborn in the Undying Lands—if they are going to rely on reincarnation to bring back a significant character who should not be dead at all. Even more absurd would be the idea that she does remarry, and it is to another Elf who also happens to be named Celeborn. Also absurd, but at least entertaining and sensible in light of how Amazon Galadriel is written, is that Celeborn faked his own death to get away from her, but he will somehow end up reconciling with her. While I think the first option is most likely what they will do, I would not put anything past how poorly these writers will try to resolve this issue created by their own unwillingness to work within the boundaries Tolkien’s work gave them.
But if Celeborn is just missing and not actually dead, this makes the writing for the show look worse, and it makes the main character look worse. How could she have gone all over Middle-earth for somewhere over 1,000 years (since her quest started before Morgoth was defeated) and not once find him or at least get some sign of him? And if she does not know for sure he is dead, why would she not look for him? Sauron killing her brother is enough to send her on a quest that she will not stop of her own accord for over 1,000 years, but her husband going missing is not enough to warrant even a tiny fraction of that effort? Granted, she was awful at finding Sauron, but if that is also the reason she could not find her own husband, even though she has given no indication of actually looking for him, it just makes her look incompetent beyond belief. And how are we supposed to connect with such a character? And if she did search for him and gave up to go search for Sauron, that only makes her look worse, yet again.
There is no way to fix this apparent fake-out and recover. The writers have already done enough to break the trust of anyone who was willing to give them a chance. And if it is a fake-out, it would be completely pointless. Like with the palantirí, even if the writers do correct the record later, why would they bother introducing the error in the first place? Why not just get it right the first time? And as with Isildur, why introduce pointless suspense if it is evident that you are going to bring a character back? Or are they actually going to defend this move in such a way as to imply that their story can only function on ignorance of Tolkien and even the Jackson films? To think, the framework of the story was written for them, and they could have taken the approach of respecting the framework as setting their boundaries and doing their work in connecting the pieces. Instead, they took that framework, spat on it, crumpled it up, threw it in the trash, and then threw the trash into a burning landfill.
Unfortunately, that is not the only problem with this scene. As I mentioned earlier, Theo is so uninterested in anything Galadriel said that he completely changes the subject to talk about himself. He insists that what has happened is not Galadriel’s fault because it is his. Galadriel denies it was his fault because he did not intend for all of this to happen. And here I thought Amazon Galadriel was supposed to be written as if she was smart. She is not, of course, as we have seen ample evidence of, but I would have thought that Amazon Galadriel 2.0 was supposed to give the appearance of being smart. She ought to know that intent is not the only thing taken into account for assigning fault or responsibility. In many cases, intent does not even matter that much (except as a matter of legal retribution). And if it is the deciding factor in assigning fault, then when Galadriel claimed earlier that everything that happened was her fault, that is her saying that she intended for all of this happen. Could it be that Amazon Galadriel is so awful because she was Sauron all along? Of course, that would raise the question of where the real Galadriel is, but obviously that is not the direction the writers are going to go. At this point, their entirely unnecessary mystery box approach to who Sauron is cannot be resolved in a narratively satisfying manner, much less in one that also comports with Tolkien’s work. The writers did not need to waste our time on such a pointless cul-de-sac of a mystery, but we have seen by now that wasting time is about all they know how to do.
In any case, Theo says, “I gave power to the enemy. So that makes me responsible.” Of course, this is true, as he is the one who gave Adar the sword-key, the location of which he would not have known about if he wasn’t so awful in insisting on seeing where Arondir hid it (offscreen, that is). Of course, the enemy also would have never known that he had the sword-key in the first place if not for his stupidity in what he did at the village (as well as the villagers’ stupidity that made him go there, as I address in the episode 4 review), so there is that, too. But again, Arondir is more responsible for all this failure than Theo. Theo is a dumb fourteen-year-old (not to say all fourteen-year-olds are dumb, but Theo certainly is), but Arondir is supposed to be over a thousand years old and he ought to be able to act much smarter than he did. We are simply supposed to ignore all that because Arondir is not in this contrived pair. Of course, lest we forget, Waldreg was the one who actually did the thing that caused the volcano to erupt, so he is more directly responsible than any of them.
Her response … just reiterates what she already said: “Some say that is the way of things. But I believe the wise also look upon what is in our hearts. And this was not in yours.” This is just her restating in a more long-winded fashion that Theo did not intend for this to happen, and so it still has the same problems I noted before. She also adds, “Do not take the burden of this day upon your shoulders, Theo. You may find it difficult to put it down again.” Obviously, this line is about her and how she has taken the burden of it upon herself. Of course, she cannot let Theo accept responsibility because she already did, and everything needs to be about her, even when is blaming herself. At least that characteristic has been maintained with Amazon Galadriel 2.0, though she is using the “O, woe is me, poor me” routine for reasons other than manipulating someone else this time.
This scene is not supposed to be funny, but I must admit that I laughed when Theo asked Galadriel how he could let go of the burden of this day. I laughed because the last person in the world who would be able to help Theo answer such a question is Amazon Galadriel. She has taken on a particular burden that she has been unable to put down for over 1,000 years and she is not about to start trying. I will talk more about the particulars of her response later, but I will say now that one thing it highlighted for me is the writers’ apparent inability to deal with difficult emotional states through their writing. When Theo is working through difficult emotions, especially at his age, he has been told now by two Elves, both over 1,000 years older than him, to just “let it go” and not think about it. Likewise, in two separate episodes, Galadriel shows no interest in helping Halbrand talk through and work through his past because she does not care and simply tells him, “be free of it.” Even Bronwyn’s apparent approach to Theo’s nightmares was to overshoot the target with an irrelevant reply, rather than helping him work through his fears. Later, we will see how Durin, when faced with a difficult emotional state, is suddenly written like a petulant, angsty teenager. One can find other examples as well. No one in this show, despite all their apparent accumulated wisdom, knows how to talk through or work through difficult emotional states. They simply tell others to avoid or ignore them. And no individual character shows an ability to work through his or her own difficulties in this regard. Everyone is so emotionally stunted, and it is rather sad that a confused fourteen-year-old is surrounded by people who absolutely cannot help him work through this stuff he is experiencing. No one ever offers him any instruction on how to avoid going back down the path he has already trodden and to forge a new path forward.
Now onto Galadriel’s response: “There are powers beyond darkness at work in this world. Perhaps on days such as this, we’ve little choice but to trust to their designs. And surrender our own.” Theo asks where the design is in his home being gone and Galadriel simply and weakly responds that she cannot see it yet. Obviously, the beginning of this statement is meant to evoke Gandalf’s statement from FOTR. The movie version is as follows:
So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring. In which case, you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought.
The book version is as follows:
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”…
“Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you were also meant to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought.” (I/2)
With the way LOTR is written, it makes sense that the higher power is referred to more passively and indirectly. But it is more troublesome for ROP, since Galadriel implicitly criticized Halbrand (and, by extension, Men in general) for lacking the conviction to name the higher powers (the Valar and, I guess, Eru Ilúvatar). Yet here she is once again lacking the conviction to name the “powers beyond darkness,” which just makes her earlier statement look even more ridiculous.
More importantly, notice the differences between these different versions of Gandalf’s statement and Galadriel’s. Gandalf accentuates the need to take responsibility for what one can take responsibility for, but also to realize that there are other forces at work, including the purpose of the unnamed but always present higher power, because of whom Frodo has the Ring at all. Frodo has the Ring for a reason, and he can take comfort that this was not the design of the Enemy, nor does he just happen to have it by the most ill stroke of luck. The higher power gave him this responsibility and he must see it through to whatever end (though neither he nor Gandalf suspect at the time that this will mean going all the way to Mount Doom himself). This is entirely different from removing responsibility from oneself and saying all these events are the responsibility of the Valar or God. It is as if she only thought about these powers now that they give her a means of pushing responsibility onto someone else, after blaming herself to this point.
Also, notice how this is different from what Eru Ilúvatar himself said in The Silmarillion:
Then Ilúvatar spoke, and he said: “Mighty are the Ainur, and mightiest among them is Melkor; but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Ilúvatar, those things that ye have sung, I will show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done. And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.” (“Ainulindalë”)
He does not say that every evil action Melkor/Morgoth does is part of his design in the same way that good things are, but that, whenever he tries to defy Eru Ilúvatar’s designs, he will simply become an unwitting instrument in bringing about something even greater than what he tries to thwart. This is a summary of what has happened to this point in the performance of the Music of the Ainur whereby Eru Ilúvatar created the world, and he formed greater themes when Melkor sought to disrupt the Music and turn it to his own purposes. By implication, then, a much wiser Galadriel who would know this story would not say that the destruction of that day was itself part of the grand design in the same way everything else is, but that Eru Ilúvatar will forge something out of this tragedy yet, and that it is their responsibility to keep moving forward to see that hope come to fruition and do what they can to take part in it. That would be more in line with the other quotes from Tolkien’s works (and even Jackson and co.’s rendition), and it would not further confuse and frustrate an already confused and frustrated youth. If only Amazon Galadriel was actually wise like her book character that shares the same name.
But now the talky bits of this scene are interrupted by an Orc search party appearing nearby. Theo stupidly tries to draw the sword he has in as loudly a manner as possible (short of screaming out like his mom does), which the Orcs hear and causes one of them to come take a look. Fortunately for Galadriel and Theo, this Orc that is searching the area has an inability to see downward, so he does not even look in their general direction, otherwise they would be seen (though, considering how easily the Orcs were taken out last episode, it is hard to take this threat seriously). Of course, it is unclear what the Orcs are even doing other than serving as props for fake suspense in this scene (you know it is fake when the Orc does not even do the basic action of looking down). Why are they even searching this far out? Why would they think anyone has gone off by themselves from the main party of survivors? They happen to be right that such a thing a happened due to plot contrivance, but what reason would they have in-universe to think such a thing would happen?
Durin v. Durin
At long last, we are done with that scene. And it is not as if that scene was especially long, it was just so dense. Every sentence had so much wrong going on. We are then back with another plotline where so much wrong is going on: the story of Elrond and Durin IV. Unsurprisingly, Elrond, who insisted he could totally be trusted, is here acting treacherously, not only undermining the word of the king, but helping the king’s own son commit treason. It’s good to see that his streak of lying and breaking trust remains unbroken in every episode he has been in. It's obviously good for the writers to show contempt for their audience and contempt for the characters Tolkien wrote.
They have taken it upon themselves to continue mining the mithril by themselves because this plotline can do nothing but spin its wheels about whether the mithril will be mined or not. Oddly enough, Durin III oversaw the initial mining and was fine with it, since he is the one who showed Durin IV the mystery box at the end of episode 2, but he cannot be convinced to go back to mining it after seeing the danger it poses. And you know what? As much as the show wants Elrond to be a POV character and Durin IV to be his similarly sympathetic friend, Durin III is absolutely in the right in this scenario. The Elves are not dying tomorrow, they will simply become mortal (because the writers decided to ignore that Elven immortality is inherent to them). And there is no need to put Dwarf lives at risk to help the Elves simply prolong their lives. If it could have been demonstrated to Durin that there is some great threat posed to the Elves that will put all other peoples in Middle-earth at risk, that would have been a better route to go than to say, “we need this so that we can continue to live longer than you.” Not to mention, it is because the Dwarves dig too greedily and too deep for mithril that they unearth the Balrog, which leads to the end of Khazad-dûm as they know it (and why the Dwarves were unable to reclaim the realm despite winning the War of the Dwarves and Orcs). Of course, this show will change even that detail, but we will get to that. The fact remains that everything we know from the later story tells us that Durin III is right about not reopening the mine, but we are expected to side with Elrond and Durin IV just because they are more significant characters to the plotline. We know that the mithril will be dug out because Bilbo (and Frodo after him) needs to get that mithril shirt. But with how this conflict is set up, there is no reasonable denial that Durin III is in the right.
They also have an exchange where Durin says he has thought of Elrond as Dwarvish for an Elf, to which Elrond responds that Durin is an Elvish Dwarf. This might have been an interesting bit of character work in a story where both of these characters were written well. But they are not. We have no idea what is meant by calling Elrond a Dwarvish Elf because there is no clear respect in which he is more Dwarvish than other Elves are. Nor do we have a clear idea what is meant by calling Durin an Elvish Dwarf because there is no clear respect in which he is more Elvish than other Dwarves are. The scripts for this plotline are simply wordier versions of Johnny and Mark from The Room insisting that they are best friends because it is assumed that the audience would not be able to infer that otherwise (of course, unlike this show, The Room features Johnny realizing what a horrible friend Mark is, whereas Durin is even more gullible than Johnny and is far too lenient on Elrond). By contrast, if the one who forged a connection between the Elves and Dwarves was Celebrimbor all along, that would have made much more sense, as we see from episode 2 in one of the few lines in this series that fit a character as Tolkien wrote them, since it expresses his admiration for Dwarves because of their shared passion for craftsmanship. But they writers did not want to take the sensible path, since they treat it as if it is their antithesis.
They even talk a bit about Durin’s name, and he tries to act like he has a devotion to the traditions of his people that he will lack in other scenes when he says, “The mightiest thing a Dwarf can do is to be worthy of the name of his father.” I have already mentioned the problems with Durin IV being the direct son of Durin III, and how this conflicts especially with the belief mentioned in LOTR that Durin, the first of all Dwarves, reincarnates every now and then, and this is what contributes to Dwarves being named “Durin.” Of course, Durin also mentions that Dwarves have secret names that they share only among those closest to them. Presumably, he is about to tell Elrond his secret name(s), but Elrond stops him and says to save it for later. They are really trying hard to tell the audience that these two are so close, but it does not work with what we have been shown. Particularly, how would they suddenly become this close again if Elrond really went 20 years without contacting him? As was evident even from episode 2, Durin is putting much more of himself into this friendship than Elrond is, and it is not clear from anything we have been shown as to why that is.
When they get back to digging, Durin cracks a hole into the mine that shows a massive amount of mithril, which he will say later is “more than we ever imagined.” There are three issues with this aspect of the scene. One, where did the Dwarves get the mithril from before if they had not yet opened this massive chamber? It is not as if they are reopening it. Two, for some reason, the makers of this show decided to introduce dissonance between what we see through the camera and what the characters see. When the camera shows us what is in the chamber, it does not pan across to what Elrond and Durin could have seen. Instead, it pans down to what they could not have seen from their vantage point. Why introduce this dissonance and not let us just see what they saw? In that case, we actually would have gotten a broader view of the mine. Three, the way the veins of mithril are shaped looks just like the portrayal of that idiotic legend from episode 5, which further confirms that we are to take that story as true, despite its absurdity on multiple levels. And I remind the reader once more, we are supposed to accept this story not only despite its inconsistency with Tolkien’s story, but also its inconsistency with what we have been told about the location of this mine. Elrond said in episode 4 that this mine was “below the Mirrormere,” which is outside the mountains of Khazad-dûm in the Dimrill Dale, rather than under one or more of them, as implied by the story’s setting in the mountains. But geographical consistency has never been a strong suit of this show, no matter who is writing.
At this point, we find out that Durin III is here, too, respecting the conventions of dramatic timing. Rather than look into the mine, as he will later, he instructs his guards to “seize the Elf.” All they end up doing is forcing Elrond out of Khazad-dûm, so I would say he got off easy for enacting treason. I am not sure why Durin III let him off so easily and why Elrond was able to leave with a piece of mithril yet again, but whatever. The writer doesn’t care.
We then have a falling out scene between Durin III and Durin IV. As with his earlier dialogue, Durin III begins the conversation apropos of nothing by telling his son about when he had trouble breathing after he was born, how he would care for him, and how one day he saw that he bore a great gray Dwarven beard fit for a king. This prompted him to tell Durin IV’s mother that this child would move mountains. Durin IV’s response to this is the beginning of him sounding like he is written like a petulant, angsty teenager, rather than a fully adult Dwarf with his own family. He criticizes this statement from Durin III by saying that his dad trembles at him digging a single hole and squelches every bit of ambition and thought that does not originate in him. What happens from here represents a dramatic escalation by the time we see what Durin III decides to do, so I will repeat it in full:
“The iron that must bear the move heavy of burdens must also endure the most rigorous tempering!”
“Consigning your allies to death is not tempering. Elrond is as much a brother to me as if he’d been fired in my own mother’s womb.”
“How dare you. How dare you! Invoke your mother’s memory to defend your decision to betray your own kind?”
“No! It’s you that’s betrayed our kind! Squandering our future so you can cling to the past! You profane the crown you wear!”
First, Durin’s opening response is an incredibly roundabout way of him just saying he knows what’s best for Durin. Again, it sounds like he is talking to a teenager. But surely his approach should be something different now that his son is an adult. Though to be fair, Durin IV does not act or talk like an adult in this scene, so I suppose it was an easy mistake for Durin III to make.
Second, for the last time, no matter how many times the writers try to make the characters insist to the contrary, by the show’s own previous description of the stakes in episode 5, the Elves are not being consigned to death. They are being consigned to mortality, that same condition the Dwarves have. And besides, this has nothing to do with the “tempering,” so this response is irrelevant. He already said he is not risking Dwarven lives for sake of extending Elven ones. Unlike Durin IV, the king is showing actual concern for his own people.
Third, Durin’s line about how Elrond is such a brother to him is yet more overselling from this writer about what kind of relationship these two people have after being reunited following a twenty-year gap and deceiving each other since that reunion. Durin III rightly calls him out on this, though I am not sure why he describes his son as betraying his own kind. He could have just said, “to betray me,” and he wouldn’t have allowed him as much of an out. Because in acting this way, Durin IV did actually betray his own father and king. He is only betraying his own kind in some distantly abstract sense. That point would have been more effective if he had gotten other Dwarves to join him in the venture and put their lives at risk. Of course, he would eventually do that if he continued on this path, but that is not what is being said. If only these characters and the people writing them understood how conversations work.
Fourth, as it is, the “betray your kind” line is a contrived setup for Durin IV to turn around on his father in a line where he sounds least like an adult. And it is unclear what justifies this denigration of tradition. Nor is it clear in what sense Durin III is clinging to the past, except by simply not mining the mithril. How is that “clinging to the past”? Don’t know. Frankly, it takes a rather myopic individual to construe concerns for Dwarven safety as “clinging to the past.”
For all of this, and the out-of-left-field remark that he profanes the crown he wears, Durin III removes Durin IV’s crest. This is meant to signify that Durin IV is disinherited. Of course, one would not know that going by a later conversation with Disa, but we will get to that. I will just say for now that it is remarkable that we went from Durin III’s fond remembrances of his son when he was a baby to such an escalation of an argument that he disinherits him in less than two minutes. Talk about escalating quickly. This really got out of hand fast.
The Harfoots Meet the Cultists
But enough of that, we must return to the Harfoots. Nori wakes up to learn that Asteroid Man not only healed the tree he was touching; he also healed the whole Grove. This was apparently a delayed-release spell, as I guess he wanted long-lasting twenty-four-hour relief, rather than immediate relief. Of course, we have already seen in this episode that the one set of rules magic will follow is the rules of dramatic timing.
But the Harfoots are not alone in these lands. The three priests/cultists led by Eminem have arrived. Are we supposed to think they got here incredibly quickly. Did they unlock the fast travel mechanic while the Harfoots were stuck walking the whole distance on foot? Consider that we saw them in episode 5 visiting the crater and this scene was placed after Asteroid Man and the Harfoots had travled hundreds of miles away over a couple of weeks already. Since then, the group has been traveling at least a few more days. Because this series insists on being inscrutable about settings in time and place, we are forced to conclude either that the incredibly brief scene of the cultist in episode 5 was a flashback that was completely out of place (almost as if the writers had forgotten until then to introduce them, when they could have easily done so near the end of episode 3), or they have traveled in a few days what took the Harfoots weeks to travel.
The cultists also encounter the Harfoots later in the episode after they look at the tree Asteroid Man had touched and use that as a means of tracking his path. But then Nori does the most ridiculous thing she has done this whole series (perhaps excepting keeping Asteroid Man a secret): she jumps out from cover to tell the cultists he went another direction than they have discerned. Why in the world did she think this would work? Why did she need to step in to interact with them at all? She could not have foreseen what would happen, but she had to know that nothing good would come of it. But if we did not have plot-contrived stupidity, where would this show be? After all, if not for this plot-contrived stupidity, Largo would have never tried to defend Nori and the cultists would not have used the fire of Largo’s torch to cast a spell that set all the Harfoots’ carts ablaze (though no Harfoots were harmed in the making of this fire).
The Camp of Invincible Characters, Plus Some Southlanders
Then we are back with the Númenóreans, where we see for the first time their camp. Do not concern yourself with the logistics of setting up this sizable camp and how it would have been done with so many going off to battle, or how the Númenóreans apparently had enough time to set this all up and still make it to Tir-Harad in a timely fashion. Do not concern yourself with how establishing a camp here would only make things more difficult for a large cavalry setting out, since there is so much forest between here and what used to be Tir-Harad that would inevitably slow their charge. Do not concern yourself with how the Númenóreans got so lucky as to set this camp up in just the right position that it would be unaffected by the effects of the volcanic eruption, despite the radius of effect being so vast. Just don’t think about it. The show is not meant to get you thinking, otherwise it will fall apart.
We also get a brief scene here that is meant to be a callback to the filler scene of Elendil and Isildur near the end of the previous episode. You see, Isildur’s horse, Berek, refuses to leave Isildur alone and resists any attempts to subdue him. Finally, Elendil lets Berek go so that Berek can find Isildur. Apparently, the horse wants to find Isildur more than his own dad does. Or rather, the horse wants to find Isildur more than Amazon’s malformed version of his own dad does. If this bond is so strong that it is sending Berek into a frenzy, why did he wait this long to turn back and go looking for Isildur? The answer is simple: the arbitrary demands of dramatic timing. It is the one thing every race, every species, every plant, every event, and every kind of magic in this show respects. Of course, the writer also wanted to force in a scene during this forced suspense to remind us of Jackson’s TTT, where Aragorn frees Brego and then Brego finds him washed up in the wilderness to bring him back. Of course, chances are that Berek will need to do more than Brego’s nudging and bearing of Aragorn.
As Elendil watches Berek run off, he says, “I should never have pulled the Elf on board. I should’ve left her in the sea, where I found her.” For what it’s worth, I agree. But I’m confused at this line from his point of view. Is the sea not always right? Or did you not interpret the sea properly? Or is this your crisis of faith about the sea (but not about the things Tolkien’s Elendil actually believed in)? While Galadriel did twist the queen’s arm to bring this force to Middle-earth (and ultimately failed but for the writers stepping in), it was not her fault that Isildur volunteered and that Elendil actually let him into the expeditionary force. In fact, except for Isildur, Elendil’s men are incredibly well off, all things considered, as almost all of them survived a battle in which they dominated, as well as a pyroclastic flow, and they are hardly worse for wear. Your queen is blinded, but that is her fault for not being smarter in how she handled a rescue, as well as the fault of Valandil for not taking better care of his queen, not Galadriel’s. And it is also not Galadriel’s fault that you never checked for yourself to make sure whether or not Isildur was alive. Amazon Galadriel may be an awful person, but the show will only have her take blame from herself or others when it is not earned.
But speak of the devil and she appears. Galadriel and Theo finally make it to the camp well after everyone has arrived. Not only a train of people including wounded made it here before the pair traveling alone, even though Galadriel knew where the camp was. That train of people also had time to set up at least one big tent for medical treatment, get everyone a bed that needed one, put the horses up (except for Berek), and try to account for everyone. Some of the Southlanders even had time to die, assuming they did not die on the road (in which case, why were they not buried prior to this?). In fact, we will learn later from Elendil that the Númenóreans had so much time before Galadriel got here that they have nearly completed preparations for departure, which they can enact within the hour. It makes no sense why these two made it here so far behind literally everyone else (except the character the writer wants us to pretend could be dead) despite leaving earlier than everyone else.
Theo divines (presumably by magic) what tent to go to in order to find his mom. We do see more people injured here, but they are basically all nameless Southlanders, and some among them are dead. This includes an obvious fake-out for Theo where he sees a woman whose face is covered with hair that is obviously darker than his mother’s, but we are supposed to believe that he thinks this could be his mom before his mom comes up behind him to reveal, to no one’s surprise, that she is alive. Oh, and Arondir is here too, bearing no damage. We will see Halbrand later, which will further confirm that literally almost ever named character endured the pyroclastic flow without any real damage. Any damage they did suffer came from taking shelter or from things that happened after the flow reached the village. Not even a single hair on Galadriel’s, Bronwyn’s, or anyone else’s head is singed. There are no burns from the extreme heat that was able to ignite buildings. Nothing that should endanger our named characters actually does. Endangerment is entirely up to the arbitrary will of the writers and any fake suspense they wish to create.
Similarly, only because the writer wishes to delay the scene with Halbrand does Galadriel go to see the queen first. Míriel is off by herself wearing a bandana around her eyes. I’m not sure how this is supposed to hide her blindness from others, but I guess we are dropping that idea that was so important to her earlier. Elendil approaches her first to say that the Númenóreans are ready to leave within the hour and that a garrison will stay behind to escort the Southlanders to a “safe settlement” (more on that later) and to search for their missing. This is a heck of a long time to wait for sending out a search party. Then Galadriel and Bronwyn come to Míriel and Galadriel kneels, which prompts the callback to episode 3 as Míriel says, “No one kneels in Númenor.” I guess Galadriel needs to emphasize how the queen cannot see by saying, “You are not in Númenor.” But this is also not especially a sign of respect in this context, since the writer wanted them to be face-to-face at eye level so that they can feature the trope of the blind person feeling another person’s face (which does not make sense because it is not as if Míriel has any experience reading others’ faces like a blind person).
Galadriel here accepts fault for … the fact that Míriel and Elendil are not in Númenor. I am not kidding, this is how the line goes: “You are not in Númenor. Neither of you are. A fault that is mine alone.” What an odd thing to “accept fault” for. Sure, she did try to strongarm the Númenóreans into coming to Middle-earth, but she did not actually succeed in persuasion. Míriel made the decision herself. Sure, she made it for reasons that make no sense in the context of what the show has told us of her story and the story of Númenor, but it was her decision. This is simply Galadriel once again making everything about her. She only accepts fault when it is not actually hers to accept.
Elendil does not even acknowledge this token gesture and tells Míriel that the ships are waiting (we will see only one ship, though). Then he looks contemptuously at Galadriel while saying that they need to put these lands behind them. It is truly wonderful to see how Elendil’s defining characteristic of fidelity/faithfulness is no longer what defines him because the writers simply want him at the mercy of their plot. They need him to blame Galadriel for his son being fake dead, even though it makes no sense, even from his point of view, to assign such blame because Galadriel had nothing to do with him specifically coming on this expedition. Furthermore, the fact that he wants to leave now when the Númenóreans have only sustained few casualties illustrates not only how self-centered he is—as he is letting his pain override everyone else’s or their lack thereof, almost like he’s Amazon Galadriel—but also his and the other Númenóreans lack of dedication. Presumably, he expected to be able to leave now because the Númenóreans came all this way for one battle. They did not come prepared for a war, as should be obvious from the size of the force, but for one battle; one battle that took them minutes to fight and then they would be ready to leave again. While not many lives were lost, as far as we can tell, this is a monumental waste of a trip, and Elendil is perfectly fine with that. Also, while Galadriel’s thirst for vengeance is supposed to illustrate how much she cares, Elendil has no apparent desire for retribution for his son. While that lack of desire could be ambiguous, in the context already established by the show, it simply indicates that he does not care all that much. Even when the script contrives for him to cry for the first time later, it is not because of Isildur but because Míriel says the Númenóreans will return with a greater force. How wonderful that this show and its writers have rendered Elendil, last leader of the Faithful and future High King of the Dúnedain in Middle-earth, so pathetic in his motivations and overall character. But then again, he does not belong in this story anyway, so it is no surprise that he had to be abused to be forced into it.
Also, it is now time for your weekly reminder that we are seven episodes into the show and five 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.
Anyway, as referenced before, Míriel vows to return with greater force from Númenor, even telling Galadriel to save her pity for their enemies (which is odd phrasing, but whatever). What is peculiar about her vow is how it once again shows a lack of attention to detail. She calls herself “Míriel, daughter of Ar-Inziladûn.” Inziladûn is the original Númenórean name for Tar-Palantir, but the change he made in his royal name was quite intentional as a way of returning to Númenor’s traditions in distinction from several rulers before him by using a Quenya name (along with the Quenya title “Tar-” rather than the Adûnaic title “Ar-”). Likewise, Míriel is so named because her father gave her a Quenya name. Why, then, does she suddenly call him “Ar-Inziladûn” in complete disregard of his clearly intentional change of name to signify his allegiance? She could have said she was daughter of “Inziladûn,” but it makes no sense for her to refer to him as “Ar-Inziladûn” and not refer to herself by a Númenórean name (in this case, Zimraphel). It makes even less sense to do this in the context of the show when we have not been introduced to Tar-Palantir by any other name to this point.
The Harfoots Are Horrible and Completely Unaware of It
But enough of that nonsense, we need to get back to Harfoot nonsense. Largo has some talking to do, some of which makes him look better than everyone else and some of which makes him look like he has been in a different show than we have been watching this whole season. First, Largo tries to tell Nori to not “let this splinter your spirits, it’ll be alright.” What is Marigold’s response to her husband and Nori’s father? She tells him to stop lying to her. Yes, Largo, let us wallow in the muck of misery and despair like the depressed pigs we are. Do not teach your daughter the importance of perseverance, of standing back up when things in life knock you down, of doing what you can to improve your situation even when you cannot see how it will turn out well. That is not what Harfoots are all about. They routinely leave others to die and would have left you to die.
Speaking of which, second, Largo makes a speech when he is acting more like a leader than Sadoc (who himself insists on wallowing) that is patently absurd in the context of this show. Largo says there is one thing the Harfoots can do better than anyone in Middle-earth: “We stay true to each other. No matter how the path winds, or how steep it gets, we face it, with our hearts even bigger than our feet. And we just keep walkin’.” First of all, what point of reference does he have to think that their feet are unusually large? They are not abnormally large compared to Asteroid Man. They do not hang around the Big Folk. And the footprint they saw of the cultists was much larger than theirs. Second, more importantly, this is absolutely false. The Harfoots were all too willing to leave Largo and his family behind to die. They have done it many times before, such that they have a memorial service dedicated to the people they did not wait for in life. And Malva indicated in episode 5 that something the Harfoots actually do to others is disable their carts to keep them from following, leaving them to die in the dangerous world. As far as can be told, they never even bury their dead. And when a Harfoot loses their family, the community does not exactly come together to help that person who has lost. We saw that already in the case of Poppy, who lost all her family, and is only ever shown being close with Nori, a friend who exploits her fear of losing loved ones. The one thing that Largo says his people do better than anyone in Middle-earth is actually the thing they do worse than anyone in Middle-earth.
Anyway, this inspires Nori to get up to go find “her friend” and warn him. Why is she going to “warn” him and not “help” him. The latter is less specific and would make more sense. The former implies that she knows where Asteroid Man is and that she can get to him faster than the cultists. This is despite the fact that he has had a two-day head start on them and the incredibly fast-traveling cultists have had roughly a half-day to get ahead of them. It would make sense for Nori to say that she will try to help him because she owes him. It does not make sense for Nori to think that she can possibly outpace the cultists to get to Asteroid Man in time to warn him. Of course, I would not put it past the writers of this show to make it so, but if they do, they will not be able to make sense of it.
Naturally, Poppy says she’s going along with Nori because her entire role in this show is to get dragged along into whatever Nori wants, and I guess she is just accepting it at this point. But what is interesting is the reason she gives for going with Nori: “We’ve left enough folk behind. We’re not leaving him.” Well, she just contradicted what Largo just said about the Harfoots, since this statement further confirms that they don’t just leave fellow Harfoots behind after they’re dead. Of course, it is utterly appropriate that Poppy is the one who says it, as she knows better than anyone the cruelty of the Harfoots’ habit of leaving people behind, since she lost her parents and three siblings in some landslide and the Harfoots apparently never helped them or did anything for her.
These two are then joined by Marigold and Sadoc (after Malva twists his arm; more on that in a bit). Why are we going with these four and only these four? For some reason, Largo is not going along, even though he is not clearly injured anymore and he just made the speech, but we are supposed to ignore that for some reason. Also, the only young people ever made prominent among the Harfoots are girls or young women. We rarely, if ever, even catch a glimpse of boys or young men among the Harfoot youth. Where are the young men? Why would none of them be useful companions, particularly since Sadoc is clearly pretty old?
But the real howler in this scenario is not this motley bunch of Harfoots that go off on this journey while clearly having trouble walking in their prosthetic feet (and I guess the director couldn’t get a better take). No, the real howler is after Malva admits that Nori was right to help Asteroid Man and says that Sadoc should go with them, Sadoc replies to her overall statement, “You know Malva, just once, once, it would grand if you weren’t right all the time.” This is literally the same woman who said two episodes ago, the last time we saw the Harfoots, that because the forest they entered was not as bountiful as before, they need to steal the wheels off of the Brandyfoots’ cart and leave them, which she says they should have done when they first set out. Is Sadoc saying she was right then? Or did he put as little thought into this statement as the writer did?
Oh Look, More Spatial Ignorance Absurdity
With the Harfoots’ plotline wrapped up, we need to wrap up the main plotline in Mordor. We see only one Númenórean ship leaving and Míriel is standing on the prow wearing her bandana. So much for hiding her blindness, huh? She could literally not be more public with it. It makes you wonder why she wanted to hide it in the first place. But what is more absurd about this is that the river is not far from the camp up on the ridge. That means, everyone had to have traveled around 100 miles or more to get from (the revised location of) Tir-Harad to here. Elendil initially claimed that distance was a day’s ride, which it isn’t. But even going by that logic, it would be more than a day’s walk, yet we are supposed to pretend that is all it took for the caravan of Númenóreans and Southlanders walking at what looked like a pretty slow pace. And I remind you that this was a caravan with injured people, people that would need to be carried. But they still cross in about one day what should have taken them at least five.
But the geographical incompetence and lack of map awareness does not end there. When Galadriel asks where Bronwyn and her people will go, she says, “An old Númenórean colony by the mouth of the Anduin. Pelargir, they called it.” We will set one problem with this statement to the side for now to focus on the theme of difficulty with concepts of space in this show. Pelargir is not anywhere near the Ethir Anduin, the actual mouth of the Anduin. In fact, there is no information in LOTR, the book they are actually legally allowed to adapt, that places it there. It is about halfway between the Ethir Anduin and Minas Tirith, around 126 miles upriver. There is a singular writing preserved in The Peoples of Middle-earth, page 183 (“The Tale of Years of the Second Age”) that says in the process of the Changing of the World that involved the destruction of Númenor,
These were much changed in the tumult of the winds and seas that followed the Downfall; for in some places the sea rode in upon the land, and in others it piled up new coasts. Thus while Lindon suffered great loss, the Bay of Belfalas was much willed at the east and south, so that Pelargir which had been only a few miles from the sea was left far inland, and Anduin carved a new path by many mouths to the Bay.
The location does not make sense if they are going only off of LOTR, the only text they have the rights to adapt. But if they are trying to go by what this singular note indicates, they are also in the wrong because every map the show has featured of the area, including the last one we saw from Míriel, shows the formation of the Ethir Anduin, which, by the lone account of this note that Tolkien nowhere included in his published work previously, was only formed after the destruction of Númenor. But Pelargir is far from the Ethir Anduin, and so cannot be reasonably said to be “by the mouth of the Anduin.” If the writers of this show paid attention to detail, maybe they would have caught that. But it seems, whether we are talking about the small details or the more crucial ones, their claim of constantly going “back to the books” was done only in order to say, “Okay, let’s not do this.”
But now let’s talk about that reference to Pelargir as “an old Númenórean colony.” It is accurate to Tolkien that the Númenórean established Pelargir as a port long before Gondor and Arnor were founded. In fact, it would become the chief refuge of the Faithful as the other Númenóreans (described as “the King’s Men”) became more and more hostile to them. But it does not make sense in the context of the show to talk about Pelargir in this fashion. There has been no indication of Númenórean colonies to this point. The Númenóreans have no awareness of anything going on in Middle-earth. Pharazôn spoke in episode 5 as if this whole venture will open up an avenue to resources of Middle-earth they did not have before, and he is working with maps beyond pre-Mordor, so he clearly has larger designs. It makes no sense if such a thought occurred to nobody before, especially if they had at least one colony established there. If it has been abandoned, not only would that not fit with Tolkien (what else is new?), but it would also not make sense for a kingdom like Númenor to abandon its established holdings by which they can expand their territory and access to resources as the kingdom grows more populous and more powerful. But this Númenor is a shell of its Tolkien self, so it unsurprisingly makes no sense.
Galadriel says she is going to report back to Gil-galad and face whatever awaits her. It would not be enough to make the show good, but with smarter writers we could at least get some entertainment out of some self-aware dialogue next episode once Gil-galad hears the absurd story she has to tell. “Why did you try to swim across the Sundering Seas?” “Where were you even going?” “Seriously, you managed to find a raft in the middle of the ocean?” “That symbol was a place on the map this whole time? Why did no one figure that out sooner?” “How did you talk their queen into fighting for you?… You thought that would work?” “You tried to train Númenóreans how to fight? What did you teach them? … WHAT?” “You told this Adar guy what?” “Wait, back up, how did that volcano erupt?”
Eventually Halbrand comes up in the conversation because no one thought to say anything about him earlier and Galadriel never bothered to ask. It turns out, Halbrand has been wounded in the abdomen … somehow. And he is not looking to be in good shape suffering from what looks like a rather large slice into his flesh. Apparently, this was how he was found by “Southlanders” on the road yesterday evening. How did he get so separated from the rest of the group and even arrive at a certain point well ahead of the caravan that arrived well ahead of Galadriel? Don’t know. The writer doesn’t care.
When Galadriel sees what is wrong with him, she divines, “This wound needs Elvish medicine.” It would have been nice if we heard a reason for that, like in LOTR where Frodo being wounded by a Morgul blade was beyond Aragorn’s ability to heal, though he could treat it with athelas (and no, I would not be surprised if we see Galadriel use athelas while they are on the road as a deliberate callback in the next episode, but we will see what happens). But have we forgotten what Arondir (absurdly) said in the first episode? According to him, Elven artificers don’t treat wounds and such, they simply “render hidden truths as works of beauty” (whatever exactly that is supposed to mean). So why would Elves in this corrupted version of Middle-earth be able to help him?
But despite the terrible shape we see Halbrand in, he is able to mount a horse by himself and ride off with Galadriel. Where is he going with what does not look like many provisions and in such bad shape? All the way to Eregion, since that is the closest of the Elven realms. 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. But whatever, I’m sure he’ll be fine, despite his poor health. They can make the journey potentially faster on horseback, but not so fast that this journey will not be problematic, and it will still take weeks even with the best of conditions, no need for recuperation, and horses that never suffer fatigue. In fact, they don’t even have any apparent plans for changing horses across that massive distance. They just plan to abuse them all the way there, I guess. Or they will just use their Elder Scrolls fast travel mechanics to skip over the vast lands in between. It would not be unusual in this series. We saw the Númenóreans apparently have this technology with how quickly they made it to Middle-earth, so I am sure Galadriel has it as well. If only Tolkien had been smart enough to think of including fast travel in his stories, then Frodo could have skipped all that Quest in between and arrived in Mordor as quickly as he wanted.
So…I Guess Disa Is Evil Now…Oh, and the Balrog Is Here, Too
Now that that mess has been wrapped up and shipped off to Lindon, we must wrap up the plotline in Khazad-dûm. Here is where we see Disa, who started off the show as a likable character, suddenly turn power-hungry and villainous. After she hears of the disinheriting, she still insists to Durin that the mithril and the kingdom are theirs. She even mentions offhandedly that the kingdom will belong to him and not to his brother. We have never heard of Durin’s brother before this, and we have certainly never seen him. What a sloppy way to introduce his existence into the show. But Disa regards him as irrelevant anyway, since she insists that the kingdom will be Durin IV’s one day. How is that going to be accomplished when the king has disinherited Durin IV? It will happen either by completely contrived writing that only Disa knows about because she read ahead in the scripts, or by Durin and Disa engaging in some old-fashioned usurpation and intrigue to seize power not bequeathed to them. Even the characters who are not completely insufferable in this show cannot maintain their quality over the course of a season. What a shame. It is unclear why we are supposed to root for such usurping people, particularly when we already know, even by the end of this episode, that Durin III is in the right, and that digging for mithril in this cavern will unleash the Balrog.
As for Durin III, he is busy with the mithril cavern, telling others to seal up the entrance to it. But he only does this after tossing the leaf from Lindon through the hole. We are then made to watch this leaf fall all the way down in the most convenient of fashions so that it lands right next to a Balrog and apparently makes enough noise from falling to the ground (I remind you, this is a leaf) to cause the Balrog to stir from his slumber and even let out this big roar (which I guess Durin III doesn’t hear from that echoey cavern?). He’s here to make a contrived appearance for enough seconds for the showrunners to put in trailers. As I have mentioned previously, he is not actually released by the Dwarves until the year 1980 of the Third Age. But the showrunners force him to make an appearance here, apropos of nothing, thousands of years ahead of time. Also, because of the contrived way they decided to do this reveal, it turns out the Dwarves don’t even need to dig that deep to awaken the Balrog. There is even an open gap between him and the rest of the cave, and it is not a small gap. He could go on a rampage now if he wanted. But he won’t do anything until the writers decide it is convenient.
A Lazy Ending to a Lazy Episode
Finally, for the first and last time this episode, we are made to check in on Adar. We see that Waldreg made it back to the village absolutely no worse for wear. He proclaims Adar as the King of the Southlands, but Adar says this place needs a new name. But rather than provide the obvious name in dialogue to someone who actually asked him the question of what it should be called, since the writers don’t know or forgot how conversations work, we simply get the laziest of font changes to signify the new name of “Mordor.” Why did Adar apparently give it a Sindarin name and not a name in the Black Speech? Who knows? The writer doesn’t care. There is little care and a surprising amount of cheapness that went into making this show.
By the way, in all 67 pre-credit minutes of this show, we never learn why the episode is titled “The Eye.” There is no particular eye referenced. It would be utterly sloppy as a reference to Sauron, since he has not made himself known yet and there is nothing particularly associated with Sauron in this show except for the land of Mordor. The Eye of Sauron was not an emblem of his until after the destruction of Númenor. The episode proper begins with a shot of Galadriel’s eye opening. Is that really the eye that is referenced in the title? Why would that be? Why could the showrunners not come up with a more fitting title or feature something in the episode that makes the title fitting? Whether it is in the big things or the little things, these writers continue to fail at making a show worth the massive investment Amazon has made.