Review: Rings of Power Season 2, Episode 2 is the Best and Worst of Amazon (Spoilers).

If you were to compare this episode to Tolkien’s work or really any other T.V. show that understood the assignment, it would be abysmal, just like the rest of the show. However, because Rings of Power Season 1 and the previous episode of Season 2 has lowered my proverbial bar to the point where it’s sunk 6 feet into the ground, this episode was actually fairly good for two reasons: Galadriel gets humbled by the Regional Manager and the Harfoots get sucked up by a tornado.

#1: Disa

The beginning of the episode picks up with where we left off on the Durin and Disa storyline. Durin has been disowned by his father, stripped of his title, is trying to pick up the pieces of his life, and Disa is being a supportive wife. While the dialogue between them is okay, it isn’t spectacular. It’s passable as something generic that sounds sweet but wouldn’t make it into Tolkien’s work. The actress who plays Disa (Sophia Nomvete) played a big part in making the dialogue sound passable since she is one of the better actors in the show and is believable as the loving wife of Prince Durin, which adds a whole other layer of disappointment in knowing that she was hired purely for DEI reasons.

However, even with that, her character still isn’t my favorite. She’s in many ways the Dwarven equivalent of Lady Macbeth and (just like with many of the other characters in the show) doesn’t take much responsibility for her actions or hold her husband accountable for his actions. Despite her good scenes and better acting, she’s still not a wonderful character.

#2: The People of Rhun

Ironically, in a show where we are constantly hit in the face with pro-“diversity” messaging, in a part of Middle Earth where the racial diversity would’ve actually made sense, who did Amazon cast?

I’ll give you a few seconds to guess since the people of Rhun are the bad guys.

That’s right. They cast a bunch of white people. It’s not like Rhun was based off of Middle Eastern peoples or anything. Clearly, it was just based off of a bunch of white dudes from England.

Seriously, what even is this?

#3: Galadriel

Galadriel is a good character in this episode…only because she’s getting humbled by Elrond, a.k.a. the only guy with some common sense. While she Mary Sues her way around, demanding that Elrond comes with her on a quest to face Sauron once more to make sure he can’t make more rings, Elrond basically tells her that he will not join her no matter how much she begs because it’s clear that Sauron still has a hold on her.

If you’re going to try to defend Galadriel here and say that Elrond’s just being stupid, remember that in Season 1, the showrunners were openly shipping Galadriel with Sauron and from her track record, it seems that she’s still in love with him (please ignore me vomiting in the bathroom).

The thing that tops all of this off is when Galadriel is told that she will be allowed to go on the quest to find Sauron and defeat him, she immediately assumes that Gil-Galad means to allow her to lead the team, but instead, she finds out the Elrond will be leading it and she will be forced to (*gasp*) follow the will of someone else who is more competent than she is and didn’t lead Sauron right into the Elves’ stronghold.

I hope that we continue to get more of this, but I have a strong feeling that Amazon is going to take away the few good things in this show to make it all about the message.

#4: Bye-Bye Harfoots

Remember how angry I was that the Harfoots are back in Season 2 with Methdalf? Well, this episode makes up for that because Methdalf actually does something good for the show and that is: He makes a tornado, and it sucks Nori and the other Harfoot into God-knows-where. While I doubt that they will stay missing for the rest of the show, that scene was the greatest moment of Season 2 so far next to Galadriel being humbled. It almost makes up for the terrible diaglogue earlier in the episode, too.

Almost.

#5: The Big Problem

Despite the highlights of Episode 2, there is one big problem that spans the entire series and that is: It still doesn’t feel Tolkienian. The reason for this is while some of the dialogue about power might sound good at first, if you really think critically about it, it completely flies in the face of everything that Tolkien stood for.

If you remember last week’s post, I talked about how Cirdan was one of the few okay characters that we’ve met so far in that he tries to help Elrond destroy the three rings, which have been tainted in the Rings of Power universe (which should be considered completely separate from the actual LOTR universe). However, ever since getting his ring (the Ring of Fire, a.k.a. Narya), he starts sounding like a less eloquent, less well-intentioned version of Boromir from the Council of Elrond scene in The Fellowship of the Ring. He basically tells Elrond that power (which is mainly the ability to subjugate others to your will in Tolkien’s work) is inherently good if it is used for good and that he just needs to realize that and stop being a wimp.

Once again, while this might sound good at first, this is actually incredibly stupid for two reasons. First of all, let’s define what “good” is. If you’re basing what is good off of objective morality which we get from God (or in Tolkien’s universe, Eru Illuvatar), then you might have somewhat of a point. However, if you’re basing your definition of “good” off of “your truth” (which is the moral standard used by the Left and thus, by Hollywood), then we get into some even bigger issues. This is because if what is considered to be “good” by you is anything that fulfills your hedonistic desires that you may also project onto other people (which we see a lot in things like the LGBTQ+ community) and thus, anything that gets in the way of that is labeled as “bad” or “evil.”

This leads to the second issue that is Amazon’s complete misunderstanding of the moral that is woven throughout Tolkien’s work (especially in The Silmarillion and the broader writings found in The History of Middle Earth) which is that absolute power corrupts absolutely. We have no further to look than Sauron to understand this. Sauron was originally well intentioned when he first joined Morgoth. He wanted the power to shape Arda into what he thought was perfection. However, the new power that he had through Morgoth corrupted him and he only ended up making things worse for not only the people of Middle Earth, but also for himself.

Amazon, however, doesn’t understand this because they are all Leftists who ultimately believe that the pursuit of power – primarily the power to fulfill your sense of hedonism – is the goal of life and as I said before, if anything gets in the way of that, then it is automatically bad. This belief is miles from anything that Tolkien had believed and that is the basis of why this show is garbage.

Until next time,

M.J.