by Robert Bouffard, Editor
If you’ve followed the development and release of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power at all, then you probably know about the initial mix of outcry and intrigue when it was first announced in 2017. When we learned that Jeff Bezos and Amazon were spending somewhere around a billion dollars to procure the rights and produce a show based on the Second Age of Middle-earth, many diehard fans of J.R.R. Tolkien and his literary works were worried about Amazon “polluting the lore” and injecting modern values into a story from the 20th century, while many others were simply excited to be getting more of this world on screen, with basically all the money in the world being used to produce it. There were a litany of reasons why some people convinced themselves there was no way the show could be any good, which led to non-stop rage-baiting online, claiming they were absolutely positive the show would be trash. Understandably, to combat the mostly baseless hate, some devoted their time to defending the show, which they also hadn’t seen.
This split, and consistent, spirited debate, led to a hotly anticipated premiere, and now that the show’s first season is complete, I can confidently say… it’s fine. It’s not nearly as bad as many thought it would be, but it’s also not as good as many hoped. The Rings of Power feels like it was made by two guys with only marginal, background Hollywood experience. And that’s because, well, it was — Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne are first-time showrunners who don’t have any official credits to their name prior to Rings of Power. Throughout the show, there’s an obvious love and affinity for Tolkien, his works, and his themes. But that of course doesn’t inherently translate into a good show.
Thankfully, reverence for the source material is a good start in a situation like this. I’m of the mind that when you’re adapting something to the screen, it’s more important to stay faithful to the feeling, themes, and ideas of the source, rather than recounting every single plot point exactly how it happens on the page. This is especially true for The Rings of Power, whose source is the appendices of The Lord of the Rings books, which, for the Second Age, essentially boil down to bullet points. There’s a lot of room for creativity and freedom in adapting this, and Payne and McKay have taken full advantage of that freedom. Hardcore purists can and do hate it, but it’s the nature of adaptation, especially when the Tolkien Estate was actively shopping these rights around Hollywood — there was going to be a show made no matter what. So with that in mind, what we got is about as good as we were ever going to get in terms of fidelity.
For as aggressively mediocre as the show is as a whole, you can’t knock it for its thematic work. When the character interactions are effectively working, so many of the ideas that Tolkien explores throughout his legendarium rear their heads. The big ones like divine intervention, faith, death and time, politics and racial tensions, and fellowship between friends are all there, and they work to varying degrees; but the floor of how well they work is surprisingly high. It’s the showrunners’ knowledge of and care for the source material that really comes to the forefront. And on top of these sometimes broad ideas, there are excellent smaller moments sprinkled in throughout, interrogating whether any being is inherently evil, exploring the relationships of parents and their children, and discussing the nature of goodness and evil. Those small moments amidst a tale that’s vast and epic in scope are what ground The Rings of Power, and show that it has the potential for brilliance.
The showrunners’ inexperience, though, is most noticeable in the story, and by extension, the characters. In any given episode — with the notable exception of episode six — there could be between three and six locations being shown. And there could be an A plot and B plot in each of those locations. McKay and Payne did themselves no favors when they stretched the show thin from the beginning. More seasoned filmmakers may have had a better sense for pace, because it’s difficult to keep track of and invest in certain storylines when you only get about 10 minutes at a timeof each.
And it’s not just the fact that there are this many storylines — it’s that some are much more compelling than others. The storyline in the Dwarf kingdom of Khazad-dûm is easily the most interesting in terms of character work, especially upon a rewatch. Elrond the (half) Elf (Robert Aramayo) and Durin the Dwarf (Owain Arthur) rekindle an old friendship at the beginning of the season, and watching it play out is wonderful. The scenes of them just sitting and talking are among the best the show has to offer. They each have their issues with their respective fathers, which in a way makes them gravitate towards the friendship of each other. This is the relationship with the most layers and nuance, and which feels the most human and real, despite the fact that they’re and Elf and Dwarf.
Much of Galadriel’s (Morfydd Clark) storyline is also well done. It’s the show’s narrative through line, as she comes in contact with each of the disparate storylines (except one notable example, which I’ll get to later). One of the few characters we recognize from Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films, Clark as Galadriel has a tall task, and she’s mostly up for the challenge. Her story can be inconsistent and back-and-forth at times, but looking back, Clark excels with what she’s given. You might not notice watching week to week, but there’s a lot of subtlety to her performance. Her main goal is to find and apprehend Sauron, who is the reason her brother and countless other Elves have died, and watching her slowly go from single-mindedly seeking revenge to understanding what a dark pursuit will do to you is ultimately one of the more engaging, and frankly refreshing, storylines.
The bad faith reading of Clark’s performance can be described as one-note, but I’m willing to be more generous and say it’s much more subtle, especially as the season progresses. As an immortal Elf who’s been through more than just about any other Elf, there are a lot of complications for her to go through. If you remember the ethereal, regal, and iconic Cate Blanchett performance from the Jackson films, you’re going to see a much different version of the character portrayed by Clark. She isn’t calm and wise — rather, she’s obstinate and tends to act without thinking. Watching week to week, it could be frustrating early on, but as the season progressed, layers start to be revealed, and Clark is given some of the most tender, insightful, and Tolkienian scenes in the entire eight-episode run. She’s well on her way to becoming the character we know and love from the films.
As someone who was and is rooting hard for this show to succeed, it brings me no joy to say those are the only two main storylines that completely work, having seen them as a whole. Númenor, which is introduced in the third episode, shows hints and glimpses of magic, but it’s ultimately repetitive and sometimes bland, and at times, the motivations for the characters within it are vague. Three of the best performances are from the Númenorean race of heightened humans — Lloyd Owen as Elendil, Maxim Baldry as Isildur, and Cynthia Addai-Robinson as Queen Regent Míriel — it’s just that they each spend a couple of episodes spinning their tires. But when they’re good, they’re good. Owen, the ancestor of Viggo Mortensen’s Aragorn, brings much of the same regal and distinguished presence that Aragorn has by the end of The Return of the King, and watching Baldry play his son, who we know from the prologue of The Lord of the Rings will eventually have a tragic arc, just makes you giddy for what will come in the next four seasons. And there isn’t much information on Míriel in Tolkien’s works, but while she began the season simply adequate, she’s one of the characters I’m most interested to see going forward, especially knowing what she goes through in The Silmarillion.
The other race of humans is followed in the Southlands. There is quite a bit of focus on this part of the map throughout the season, and such a small percentage of it is captivating in any way. The most interesting character is Ismael Cruz Córdova’s Arondir, an Elf who is in love with a human, Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi). In the entirety of Tolkien’s legendarium, there are only three romantic relationships between an elf and a human, which would theoretically place extra significance on getting this one right. But the problem lies in the lack of chemistry between the actors. Cruz Córdova is actually excellent apart from his romantic scenes. He brings a stoic, Elfish presence, wisdom, and love for the earth that we’ve grown accustomed to. But Boniadi just isn’t given anything to work with. The same goes for the Southlands as a whole. What should be captivating is overall pretty boring.
We’re also treated to some beautiful Elf kingdoms — Lindon and Eregion — which are predecessors to Rivendell and Lothlórien (well, Lothlórien technically exists during this time, but that’s a whole other topic). Sadly, they’re not given much to do. We know from the source material that Benjamin Walker’s High King Gil-galad will be given more to do in the future; while he surely brought a kingly presence to the show, his appearances were simply too sparse to make a true impression. Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards), on the other hand, is given the fun stuff. He’s the famous Elven smith with potential ambition problems, and he plays a key role in the finale. The main problem is, for as substantial as the show wants you to believe the finale is, it spends so little time building it up that it rings almost completely hollow. I wish they’d spent more time developing this over the Southlands, or especially the Harfoots. An extra two episodes, to give the season 10 total, instead of eight, could have done wonders for the pacing.
Generally, I’m open to changes to the text and ideas or storylines that are wholly created for the purposes of the show. But they have to work in their own right. Harfoots are mentioned offhand in the prologue to The Fellowship of the Ring, but they’re not given any sort of depth, especially not like they are in the show. And after a season of seeing these proto-Hobbits, I can confidently say they don’t work in their own right. It’s a shame because Markella Kavenagh and Megan Richards are great as Nori and Poppy, our Frodo and Sam. They have all the charm, innocence, and humor you’d want out of Hobbit-adjacents. It’s just a massive shame they were let down by the writing. Whereas each of the other plot threads I’ve mentioned has tied into each other, the Harfoots are completely disconnected, apart from that they find Meteor Man, The Stranger (Daniel Weyman), in the first episode. He’s a huge, bearded guy who doesn’t have any memory, or the ability to speak, but he does have magical powers of some kind. He comes to Middle-earth in a meteor that the rest of the cast sees, but that’s the only thing tying what becomes a main story line to the rest of the show. Its entire purpose seems to be, cynically, to give the audience something familiar. Hobbits and a sense of adventure are more of a Third Age thing, while the Second Age is vast, political, and legendary. It doesn’t always feel as ground-level as the show does, and that’s only a problem because it just feels completely disconnected from everything else.
The Stranger’s presence is The Rings of Power’s main problem exemplified. McKay and Payne are longtime students of J.J. Abrams, who, while he has made some good movies, rarely has something original to say about anything. Super 8 is, “remember how great Spielberg is?!” Star Trek is, “remember how great Star Trek is?!” And worst of all, his Star Wars films are, “remember how great Star Wars is?!” He also has a tendency of writing mystery box storylines that are all about setting up something cool without a clear answer. Now, I truly believe McKay and Payne have much more reverence and understanding of their source than Abrams ever has for the aforementioned films and filmmakers, and that they have a true answer for the mysteries they set up this season, but that doesn’t make the mysteries any less frustrating. Halbrand (Charlie Vickers) is a human character Galadriel meets in the second episode, and we don’t know much about him. Instead of meaningful growth or thematic work, it’s a mystery. The same goes for The Stranger. Is he Gandalf? Is he another wizard? Is he a balrog? Is he Sauron? Again, instead of telling a meaningful story about him, it seems that Payne and McKay were more interested in the mystery around him. I won’t spoil their outcomes, of course, but in a season that was already full of contrivances and sometimes simplistic storytelling, it’s just frustrating to get two main storylines whose main purposes seem to be to generate fan theories.
“Who is Sauron?” is also the main question that was asked weekly by fans following the show. He’s again an unseen villain for much of the season, but looking back, it was mostly due to the marketing. This mystery box is not necessarily in the text of the show the way questions regarding Halbrand and The Stranger are.
Amazon spent a whole lot of money on the rights to this show, and it’s a perfect lesson of what money can buy you in Hollywood. It doesn’t inherently buy you incredible and compelling writing (an overreliance on tropes and mysteries is the ultimate downfall), but it almost does inherently buy you stunning visuals. I got to attend a fan event where the first two episodes were premiered in a Cinemark XD theater, and it was mesmerizing. Middle-earth was made to be shown in majesty on the big screen. And surprisingly, the luster isn’t lost at home either. Númenor isn’t introduced until the third episode, and while I would have loved to see it on the big screen, it’s still an awe-inspiring introduction. We’ll see how much of this holds up for season two, as Middle-earth is leaving it’s real-world home of New Zealand for the first time in live action. But I’m beyond grateful we got it for the first season.
The visuals are always buttressed by Bear McCreary’s incredible score. I was initially apprehensive, as Howard Shore’s scores for the six Middle-earth films (yes, The Hobbit included) feel definitive and beyond iconic. While he did write the main theme, I wished he was returning to score the full show. But McCreary was up for the task and then some. He brings a musical identity and majesty to the Second Age — his themes for Khazad-dûm, The Stranger, Númenor, and Valinor are particular standouts, though I’ve had the entire score on repeat for weeks now.
Even though the writing and pacing can be frustrating at times, The Rings of Power should satiate any thirst for the visuals of Middle-earth and beyond — not just for Tolkien fans, but for television and fantasy fans as well. I’d read The Lord of the Rings multiple times before seeing it, but I do have to credit the show for making me dive back in to The Silmarillion and the rest of Tolkien’s published writings. Those writings and the original Jackson films set such a high bar that it was nearly impossible for The Rings of Power to reach it (and multiple references to the films per episode do get tiring), but it succeeds in creating a desire to dive deeper. And thankfully, Tolkien wrote a lot that you can dive deeply into. The show has a lot of good stuff, some great stuff, and some bad stuff, but I can honestly say there’s nothing terrible. I know that’s no ringing endorsement, but it’s reassuring as a fan of this world to know I’m not in for another Hobbit fiasco. Finrod (Will Fletcher) says in the first episode that, “Sometimes to find the light, we must first touch the darkness.” I’ve touched the darkness of The Hobbit. The Rings of Power isn’t that. It’s on its way to the light. It has the potential to be great. You can tell the people behind the show love the source as much as Jackson and his team — they’re just not as adept as filmmaking as he was.
Score: 6/10
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