'The Rings Of Power' Season 2 Episode 5 Spoiler-Free Review
Image Source: The Fantasy Review
Things are “heating up” as they say in Episode Five “Halls of Stone” of Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. This episode brings us back to the two major storylines of this season and deeper into the intricacies of the stories of each place and the characters.
This season is darker than the first as the evil, now out in the open a little more, continues to spin webs and grow. This episode in particular delves even further into that darkness, which may surprise some who are used to some of Tolkien’s lighter work, but if you read what Tolkien wrote for the First and Second Age in Middle-earth it is anything but light. Middle-earth and Númenor are in turmoil. Political unrest is spreading. The darkness from Morgoth in the First Age passed to his right hand, Sauron, and now that Sauron is back in full swing of his conniving manipulative self, the world around the characters is growing darker by the minute as the evil threatens to overwhelm them. And this episode, in particular, has quite a few bleak and extremely gut-wrenching scenes.
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For fans who have read the source material, they know what is coming and awaits the characters, which adds an interesting element to watching a television show since normally, the ending is a mystery. However, even with knowing the fate of some of the characters we have grown to love, the foreshadowing we’re seeing, their character development, the emotions they’re going through, still adds such a depth to this show that even though we know the end, the journey is what matters. The actors in this episode bring so much to their characters, and it makes it one of the saddest and most emotional episodes to date of the season. A lot happens in just this one episode, and it sets up some major plot points later down the road for these characters.
The story keeps getting deeper and more complicated. Issues with the Rings are starting to pop up even more, suggesting something is not right. Family issues are rising in Moria and Númenor, along with the friend rift we’ve already seen with Galadriel and Elrond. These themes are prevalent throughout and only getting bigger as the season goes along, showing that each family, each city, is threatening to break apart in the threat of evil instead of banding together against it. The visions in the Rings are getting darker and stronger, along with the strange visions from the Palantír. And the unease surrounding the Rings is growing now that the dwarves also have their seven.
Image Source: The Nerdist
In this episode, we get a fun glimpse at a sight that fans will know quite well from The Fellowship of the Ring and Tolkien’s artwork, and it hopefully won’t be the last we see of it either. We also get some really neat world-building elements from Tolkien’s lore. Even though Amazon doesn’t have the full rights to The Silmarillion, they were granted leave by the Tolkien Society to use some of the writing in the book. We have already seen some nods to things from a character mentioning an elf or seeing images or nods to stories from the First Age. In this episode, we are gifted several name drops that will excite Tolkien fans, especially because of the world-building and stories behind the names. It’s a nice callback, and really helps to round out the world even more. Plus, it’s really neat getting some favorite characters mentioned on screen for the first time.
In this episode, as always, the settings are breathtaking. With each episode, we’re getting to see more and more locations in Middle-earth or Númenor that we haven’t previously seen. It expands the world visually, in a way that isn’t always done in movies, especially because most of these sets are physically built. What is neat about this episode is even though it’s very focused on just a couple of locations, we get to see even more details in the locations that we hadn’t seen previously or venture into new areas of the cities. Along with the sets, the costuming in this episode is particularly stunning and unique, showcasing especially the different areas of Middle-earth and Númenor and the differences in color and styles. The attention to detail is just stunning in all aspects of the production design for this show.
One thing that we haven’t touched on much since the beginning of the season is the title sequence. Just like in Season One, this title sequence is also done using real elements and not CGI, in this case, it’s sand. At first glance, they look like they’re just interesting patterns of the sand, but in looking closer, we see that they are making patterns that foreshadow and mean something. There are also images depicting events or things of power (like the Silmarils) from the First and Second Age. Some of the images include a Balrog head (which we have been getting more and more hints of in the show), the Rings, the trees of Valinor, and the stars and crown in the Doors of Durin, just to name a few. It’s really neat to see the trend continue with title sequences for this, to not use CGI to make the cool shapes, but instead to use practical effects to create something beautiful and which gives homage to the past and points to the future. Some of the things shown we have seen in the season already and a few are yet to be seen.
The end of this episode points towards an even larger conflict to come. It looks like it might happen sooner rather than later, which is exciting and yet, for fans of Tolkien’s writings, also sad. Three more episodes left and still so much story to tell and many mysteries to unravel. Will the storylines converge even more?
Rating: 9/10
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CultureSlate gives this episode a 4.5 out of 5.
Sources: Variety, Screen Rant, Collider
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