I don't know what is worse, the poor script or the terrible execution. Can we finally consider Nazanin Boniadi the worst actress in Hollywood? For Christ's sake, what a shameful performance.
This was EPIC. So intense and just filled with both tense and exciting moments, capped off with an amazing twist to end on a harrowing note. Far and away the best episode of the show so far, and not just because of the wall to wall action. Yes the action was awesome and very engaging, but it was also the payoff to 5 episodes of buildup for two of the main storylines. Seeing these battles finally happen and characters we know meeting and interacting for the first time brought so much catharsis. I think the episode really benefitted from focusing on this one storyline for the entirety of the episode, so we could stay in it and experience it uninterrupted with all of the characters. This felt like the peak of the show and what it had been building to, and now we will deal the aftermath for the final episodes of the season. This episode is the first time I feel like I am truly loving the show.
At some point in the future I will watch all this again as I'm sure I'm missing things. But it was amazing to see how everything came together into a spectacular finale that felt like a season ending episode.
Good episode. Suspenseful. Nicely choreographed skirmishes. Nice cinematography. Plus, it's probably the first time I felt the Arondir-Bronwyn romance was told in a way that was actually credible. All other dialogues and quieter story arches are still disappointing though, but obviously they know how to choreograph battles. That's not enough for a great show but something they can build on in the episodes and seasons to come. I hope they don't come to the conclusion that this show needs to focus primarily on action and can neglect all other elements. First time that the epic music didn't feel pathetically über-dramatic.
The show's plot is incoherent, thus here are my incoherent remarks:
So is Galadriel meant to be good or not lol. Did anyone else notice the scene at the castle. It was night going in 2 mins later its completely daylight lol
In episode six, Rings of Power Season One's slow burn abruptly bursts into an inferno.
The Good: Major plot threads finally knit together; the fight choreography is impressively on point; key characters take decisive, emotionally resonant steps; we're treated to some jaw-dropping imagery. I wish the whole series so far had been more like this episode.
The Bad: The final battle confusingly cuts from: 1) a pitched nighttime siege to 2) a bright daylight charge to 3) a dawn melee. Did the cavalry descend into a really shady valley, just ahead of the morning sun? The editing didn't make this clear.
The Ugly: The episode's swift, sudden plot and character developments reinforced my sense that the series has been poorly paced, overall. Instead of the meandering journey we got, I'd rather the season had built steadily toward this point.
Still, quite the spectacle.
I'm sorry, but how stupid was that?
First of all, they abandon a rather easy to protect tower with only 1 access, for a village open on all 4 sides? And how did they manage to get there before the orks who weren't all in the tower's yard when it fell? And then they're all concerned about Bronwyn when in fact that tavern is surrounded and everyone's about to die? Of course, Theo's giving the Uruk that sword, and of curse, Arondir hides it first in such an obvious place where "no one can find it". Yes.
And then the Numenor, whose leaders Halbrand and Galadriel are (why???), arrive just in time to kill those measly couple of orks and celebrate like it's a huge victory and the whole of middle-earth is liberated? And when the Numenor look as though they're overwhelmed, the queen regent sends 1 (one!) rider as help, Isildur. And after all this Halbrand gets greeted as the new king of the Southlands, just like that.
Uruk somehow manages to get the sword to that human traitor before he gets captured by Galadriel and Halbrand who each prevent the other one from killing him... and I'm not sure who's worse, the Uruk or Galadriel. Meanwhile that traitor uses the sword to open the gates of the damn back up at the watchtower, water flows into the mountains and causes a volcano (mount Doom?) to break out. And Uruk manages to get away in all that pandaemonium.
3 paragraphs for over an hour of senseless TV. Where are the rest of the orks? Where's the horde of orks that approaches the village? Do the Southlands only consist of this small village that the Numenor know just where to go? And let's not even talk about how Isildur gets to talk to every major leader in this campaign: the queen regent, Galadriel... and as a stablehand he, of course, has armour available for him. And do the Numenor only have 3 ships (after 2 exploded last episode)? They are a sea-faring people, and 3 ships is all they have? And 500 people (if they even could squeeze those into the 3 remaining ships) are meant to be a deciding force? This is meant to be some kind of epic battle, but it comes across as small and ridiculous. Sorry, but this really was one of the most wasted hours of TV I've spent in recent time.
The first 3/4s of this episode are so generic and full of plot holes that I felt compelled to write a review. Every time Galadriel appears I feel I'm watching Mulan... The music can be so generic and underwhelming sometimes... Random 12-hour charge from the ships to save a village they had no idea it existed and was attacked in the first place. Randomly the queen knows Isildur very well and somehow, she decides: "oh yeah kid, go and fight because you're itching for battle with 0 experience", and oooh so it happens he rushes and his dad is in peril!... wtf???!!! are you for real? Same bullshit fight with the elf and the huge orc while Bronwyn coming to save him was so predictable... This is the worst episode of all so far. I'm sure Disney would've done a better job. The good like always are the costumes and the makeup, great looking orcs. last part of the episode is good, and leaves us with a cliffhanger. I wonder if they'll finally deliver next week
I do not know if I missed something last episode, but how did Galadriel and the Numenoreans know to rush to that particular village in the entire southland? I know they were planning to go to the southland but I am sure they did not know about Adar, the orcs and that specific village being about to be attacked when they set sail. A rather big plot hole. Or was that village basically the one marked on the map they found? Or is that basically the whole of southland which I find impossible. Sigh
Sure, this is the most eventful and exciting episode so far, and it's filled with action... but who cares about action when it's subpar and everyone involved is boring and bland? I don't care what happens in these action sequences because I don't give a damn about any of the characters. Sure, some of it is visually appealing, but as I've been saying with each episode of this show - that's the only positive thing I can say about this show. It's not that I think anything about the show is necessarily awful - I wouldn't even go as far as to call it bad - I just think that the entire thing is supremely bland and generic. There are no characters I care about even a little bit, and the plotlines aren't all that interesting either. This is a show that lacks a soul; it is devoid of life and utterly forgettable.
Did they charge all the way from the ships to the village..?
The ending was quite something to say the least. This was the cliffhanger of all cliffhangers, most of the characters involved. The events which preceded that moment were okay, a lot of the fight sequences felt clichéd, paint by the numbers kind of stuff. Let's see how it unfolds next week. It was a medivial age equivalent of an atom bomb going off on a battlefield, so who survives?...
Absolutely phenomenal
Pros
+Halbrand and Galadriel legitimately are perfect compliments to each other where they provide mental strength in the most important moments
+The fighting scenes were fantastic
+Adar's origin was fitting and wonderfully portrayed
+The flames of udun issuing forth was magnificent and the way it happened had great lead up and execution (although weirdly I've seen criticism of this even though it was definitely well built up throughout the first few episodes)
+I love Adar's supposed "motives" and how they are definitely a smoke screen lie for the following events
Neutral
*Numenor arrived a little too early for my liking, the pace in this show is decently fast but it was a bit too fast
Cons
-Arondir trying to give the son an opportunity to give the sword hilt back made no sense since before he admits he got a massive power fantasy from it and wanted to have it lol
-Small criticism but Bronwyn immediately proclaiming Halbrand King after he simply presented himself with the crest was strange and out of character
I feel a little torn on this. On one hand, we finally see some decent action and plot moving forward, but on the other hand, some things didn’t make sense to me. The change of time is portrayed weirdly, was it night or day? How did Numeronians know where to go? Why is Galadriel and Queen Regent’s acting so bad? Why did she let that mf live after saying all Orcs should die:skull::skull: I’m curious as to where the story is going because I do like the show but some things are just a head scratcher
This show sometimes looks and sounds amazing with cool plot developments ..and at others it is janky, corny and cheesey.
If the goal is for me to care less and less each week what happens or who survives the episode then job well done.
5/10
Still looks and sounds remarkable, yet the story creaks a bit through the cracks of the appendices from LOTRs. As an opera I'd give this top marks, and as a fairy tale with bolt on names and geography from Tolkien it comes through and delivers. It has the look and feel perfectly, yet the story still seems confined. It feels as if one village is under threat. Adar is done very well, and I'm missing the Hobbits with their pet Maiar. I feel a tad embarrassed for the writers, showrunners, and directors having to work inside a Tolkien ship-in-a-bottle, but that's how it is. For me it is mostly remaining a sow's ear, and not a purse. I wish I could like it, but I'll just have to soldier on with a grim expression, feeling as if I have to watch the films to sanitise my mind's eye.
A largely fantastic spectacle gets significantly married by poor pacing early on, and an fairly incredulous ending.
This episode mostly concentrated on various affrays between the people from the Southlands under the leadership of Arondir and the orcs led by Adar. After seemignly easy victory with the tower, the folks prepare to defend themselves in their village, and they are already celebrating victory when they found out that they were really fighting the people who joined Adar's team in the previous episode and not the orcs themselves. Then the real orcs come with Adar and finally force Theo to reveal where the sword hilt is hidden by threatening to kill his mother. Adar orders to kill all the villagers all the same and they are saved only by the Numenorean cavalry that charges at the orcs in the nick of time. This felt a bit forced and a "deus ex machina" type of plot device. It is good they saved them, though.
Galadriel interrogates the captured Adar but he does not confess to being Sauron, instead he says he is one of the elves turned into orcs and that he helped Sauron in his experiments; according to him, Sauron wanted to save Middle-Earth by creating orcs. Adar claims that he had killed Sauron. Galadriel swears to wipe all orcs from Middle-Earth and kill Adar last and is about to slay him when Halbrand stops her, just like she stopped him when he had wanted to kill Adar after he captured him escaping with what they had thought then was the hilt of the magic sword. There was some creepy conversation between the two men, hinting at their history together and suggesting Halbrand may be Sauron and so his overlord. Adar may probably be lying to protect Sauron if he is so loyal to him. Though it is strange that he plants some seeds before battle and uses the same words with the same custom as Arondir later tells Bronwyn. So it looks like he is a bit clinging to his elven ancestry even in spite of all his evil.
Somebody's been doing some reading, since Bronwyn almost quotes Sam's words from LotR to cheer up Theo before the battle. This was rather a nice touch though it did not fit very well as Bronwyn's people are supposed to be ancestors of Morgoth's followers and this concept does not feel like them very much. I liked the later scene with Elendil calming Isildur's horse and telling him he learnt it from his mother (who apparently drowned, from what I recall nothing is written by Tolkien about Elendil's wife so anything goes here). Though at times the show starts using more advanced and poetic vocabulary and turn of phrase, more fitting for a Tolkien show than in previous episodes.
Galadriel and Halbrand have a creepy conversation which sounds a bit as if they were infatuated with each other, which is really bad news if he really is Sauron, since the book!Galadriel was the person who never trusted Sauron in his guise of Annatar, in contrast to other elves, so it would be very offensive to Tolkien fans to make her so gullible. Halbrand uses the word "bind" which seems very Sauron-y thing to do, though it may also seem romantic in the sense of forming a love relationship. In Peter Jackson's film, this word is used in conversation between Arwen and Aragorn to mean their love and devotion to each other. Anyway, Galadriel's romance with Halbrand is off-limits even if he turns out to be an ordinary mortal Man (Galadriel should have been married to Celeborn and have Celebrian with him; Celebrian is Arwen's mother so without Galadriel's marriage there would be no Arwen at all! so the showrunners have to be really careful here). Tar-Miriel orders Halbrand to come to her and he is immediately hailed by the villagers as their "king that was promised" which is completely stupid since it is the first time they have ever seen him and they immediately believe he is their king only on account of his pouch (though if he is Sauron he may really be their king taking into account what happens next).
Arondir gives the packet with what he thinks is the hilt to Theo, and as Theo says he misses the weapon as he experienced real power with it, I though that maybe the irritating kid is Sauron is disguise because why not? There is no logic in the show after all, and Theo definitely has leanings towards darkness.
All this does not matter at all since the loyal Darkfriend, the guy from the tavern, escaped with the real hilt (it was really silly of the whole good guys team not to have checked what the packet really contained, though maybe Arondir could have known something? since it would be equally silly of the elf to give the hilt back to Theo, giving them advice to get rid of it, which Theo obviously would not have followed) and initiated the Mount Doom activation procedure (which seemed a bit silly as they could have only destroyed the dams without using the hilt), which as I read online is somewhat scientically realistic. So I guess all the people in the village are now dead, maybe not Adar since he escaped, which is good because he seems like the only interesting character on the show. I hope the explosion would finally kill Galadriel and after some time in Mandos, she would return as the Galadriel we know.
Anybody else feel like fuck that horse and it's 15 seconds?
Hands down, Adar is the greatest character of the series so far, no doubt.
I liked that this episode didn't jump around wildly and pretty much focused on one location and set of events only.
Adar was my highlight, most other characters still are in the process of developing depth. Clark provided some good stunts as Galadriel. I'm getting more satisfied with her casting with every episode.
Still not a great series but consistently good.
If I could do .'s this would be around an 8.6/10 or something but FINALLY, feel like this is the first truly great episode of the show. The episodes have been okay / good up to now for sure but this episode finally got me invested into the show, I hope it can keep this pace up for the rest of the season at least.
The cinematography, music and action all SLAPPED, entertained from start to finish with this one!
The elves' sight is so keen that they can see beyond the planet's curvature.
So many stupid unnecessary things that are just cringe...
Why did the queen told Isildor to go to battle alone, they never talked in the entire series...
Were they sprinting for hours to that specific village? How did they know!?
How did the sword moved from hand to hand and no one noticed it was a decoy!?
Also, so much expecation around this sword, for it to be just a key...
The need to show the horse of Adar was not dead after he stupidly tripped (how was Halbrand able to hit him head-on!?!?)
Galadriel is so cool:heart_eyes: I'm in love:heart_eyes:
Finally a good episode!
I think I enjoy the orcs and Uruk most of all. At least they’re interesting and not bland and empty like all the other characters.
Udûn indeed!
How do so many fail to confirm that what they have is what they sought?! It took one aggravating child to realise the sword wasn't there.
Anyway, the fight was a treat and those dodges worth the hype, but ultimately this epic failure was a vexation. They have unleashed the darkness - flood gates of Mordor/Hell, the Palantiri prophecy (Orb as well as the old King) was 100% right.
Kind of a good episode . Can’t believed i watched this far lol. Just gonna tough it out from here
Up until this episode, Rings of Power felt stilted and underwritten, mostly a dramatized timeline ticking boxes rather than an actual dramatic narrative.
This ep felt much different. To start, it kept us focused on one geographic area and set of characters and because it kept turning the tables in unexpected ways.
Finally, because it gave some actual characterization to Adar and some depth to the Orcs. And, more meaningfully, someone in Lord of the Rings finally calls out the fact that making and keeping the Orcs evil and expendable actually flattens the stakes in Lord of the Rings. That Lord of the Rings is a flat story if the evil characters have so little development.
I do think that, going fwd, Rings of Power needs to restrain it's prequel-ish instinct to put check boxes next to items it's setting up for Lord of the Rings.
That said, put a check box next to Mount Doom and Mordor, and expect check boxes soon for The Shire and the Riders of Rohan. Mount Doom and Mordor are spoilers, The Shire and Riders of Rohan are guesses.
Script written with the ass.
The Galadriel dodge was hilarious.
7.5/10
That watchtower trap at the beginning was awesome! Their second trap was also a nice idea but I already assumed that Adar wouldn't fall for another trap. If only that other half of the humans would've head more courage and bigger hearts.
"We were fighting our own." (However, when rewatching it, it looked like at least 25% of the enemies had to be real orcs.)
Elves are quite OP :D They have super hearing (Elrond in the dwarven mines when Durin talked to Disa in quite some distance), super sight, and what other powers do they possess?
"It'll be visible to your eyes in a few moments."
"Is it visible to yours already?"
"Has been for nearly an hour."
"She drowned." Oh no... :o Galadriel is always so straight to the point with her questions.
Arondir and Brownwyn finally kissed.
It didn't look well at all for those humans after their plan didn't work out but the cavalerie arrived just in time! :)
Looks like Halbrand and Adar already "met"... :o
Galadriel and Halbrand seem to really need/fit each other (both can get so close to the darkness).
"One cannot satisfy thirst by drinking seawater."
Galadriel got extremely close to the darkness when she said: "No. Your kind was a mistake. Made in mockery. And even if it takes me all of this Age, I vow to eradicate every last one of you. [...]" It was nice at first but quickly got scary. At least she thanked Halbrand for pulling her back :) (She doesn't use that word a lot... :o)
And then I was super upset that none of them did apparently bother to check the weapon/package! They didn't give Adar enough credit and it was a huge mistake! At least Theo did check it!
Quite some action at the end though!
I wonder how they'll get out of that.
It doesn't look good at all...
It looks like no one could possibly survive this but I guess that won't be the case. I wonder how they'll explain that mess... :o (The Queen's look was pretty priceless btw!)
The volcanic eruption also seemed unrealistic tbh. I don't think you can set a volcano off like that. The water should simply evaporate (maybe not completely before touching the surface but even that should be fine). I think physically it would only be possible if one would manage to eject the water below the surface/lava so that it would build up a lot of pressure quickly and if that pressure cannot escape through the same path it could force magma up (if there's such a path). Anyway, I'd be interested in a physical analysis now :D
I can finally suggest people to start to see this TV series since this episode ahahah!
MY GOD. This was more EPICCCC than all of LOTR movies!!! All the slow burn build up in the previous episodes paid off with a BOOM.
Unbelievable! In this episode all ends up! :scream:
I liked this at first but it's gotten nothing but worse. Between this and House of the Dragon I can't tell what's on a faster spiral downward. The lead elf is a horrible actress, the king story is dumb and the villager part of the story feels like an episode of Hercules. They could combine both of those shows and there still wouldn't be a single character I find interesting nor care about.
Omg. This is the most brutal and epic episode of the season so far. The origins of the Uruk-hai are revealed, the plot twist in the village’s plan to fight the first wave of Orks, all ending in the destruction of the Southlands and the creation of Mordor
First episode I enjoyed. Usually, when people want more action and less talking I assume they are a basic af. But because there's been so much talking and little of it is interesting is refreshing when they bring out the big guns.
Shout by tropoliteVIP 5BlockedParent2022-10-01T13:50:55Z
Dear oh dear... I read these comments and reviews and honestly I wonder if I'm watching the same show.
Has people's taste and understanding of quality in entertainment been pummeled over time to put the bar so low now that this show is being gushed over the way some people are doing?
There is no consistency, the compositing is atrocious, there are some major modelling issues that should have been fixed in post. Continuity is appalling. The Galadriel thing is just monsterous. The acting and writing is truly some of the worst I've seen in such a huge budgeted show.
I was in moments of out loud laughing at the absurdity, or in silence with jaw dropped in gross astonishment. Then forehead in hand with vocal groans pain.
The closing scene was complete nonsense. That would be endgame for any living flesh. Alas we know there is a main survivor that would be an impossibility. 2/10