'The Rings Of Power' Season 2 Episode 6 Spoiler-Free Review
Image Source: Midgard Times
“Where Is He?” is the title of Episode Six of Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and it’s the perfect title for this episode, appropriately giving it the chilling start to an epic final couple of episodes and story arc. This episode sets up the finale in a way that viewers know that all hell is going to break loose soon.
For the first time this season, an episode covers almost every storyline, which actually doesn’t feel like too much, even though this episode is still only around an hour long. It stands to reason from the past in this series that having too many storylines in one episode would feel too rushed, but it doesn’t because other than the two big ones, they don’t focus as much on the others, but still enough to progress those stories forward. And it works. In fact, the episode didn’t feel nearly long enough, and it would have been neat to see a lot more. But alas, we will have to wait for next week. This episode also sets up that, most likely, another one of the storylines will converge with one of the main ones in the finale, which will be exciting to see.
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This episode does a great job of highlighting the characters and their feelings. Each actor has done a fantastic job of portraying their characters and the emotions and arc they’re going through. From Elendil to Celebrimbor and Annatar (Sauron) to Galadriel and The Stranger (seriously, when will we know for sure who this guy is, J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay??), and everyone else, the raw emotions, the struggles, the holding back on what they actually want to do or say, it all culminates in some fantastic performances for characters that we have loved from Tolkien’s works or, even the new characters for the show. Many of the characters and settings in the show are ones that longtime fans sometimes never even realize they wanted to see on screen until it’s there, and it is absolutely jaw-dropping.
One of the criticisms mentioned in an earlier review was that the costumes were beautiful, but not changing much on the characters so we didn’t get a variety. This episode, however, proved once again that the production design in the episode is absolutely flawless to help transport you to the world of Middle-earth. Several of the characters end up in different, gorgeous outfits for this episode, with each outfit highlighting their character and their intentions at the time. Proving once again that good production design is great at hinting and adding to characters, their stories, and the storyline of the whole saga.
Image Source: IGN
Along with the production design, the lighting and cinematography again in this episode really helped to highlight the darker, more intense, and chilling storyline. At one point, the camera angle is deliberately crooked to help the viewer feel the distortion of the scene and conversation going on between the two characters. The lighting changes dramatically at several points to highlight, again, the darker aspects of certain characters and their designs (Ok, basically Sauron). The feel by the end of the episode, helped by these elements as well as the story itself, is almost bordering on suspense and horror. Fans of Tolkien know that this particular storyline is definitely much darker than The Lord of the Rings, and so far, the show is not shying away from that feeling. It will be interesting and exciting to see just how dark they get and how the filming and production design adds to that story.
On that same vein, the music in this episode is particularly great. Bear McCreary does an amazing job as always at putting little Easter Eggs and hints within his music to help show what the character is thinking and feeling. In the behind the scenes interview that he did with Felicia Day on Prime after this episode, he said that, in particular, one of the Easter Eggs he threw in really helps to showcase Sauron and his character even more by setting up the scene and the character’s motives, along with helping to set the stage for the next two episodes. Bear is an absolute master at this, and throughout this season especially, since we now have established themes for many of the larger main characters, he’s able to use the music to also help tell the story and hide character and story development within the soundtrack to help build the story even more.
In this season, family and deep relationships have been a huge theme throughout. This episode strongly highlights that theme among the dwarves and men. This theme has always been strong throughout Tolkien’s works, and the show does an excellent job of showing the strong bonds between characters and the tensions that are also created, especially among the dwarves (Durin III and Durin IV), Elendil and his daughter, Eärien (Yes, she wasn’t in the books, but her character has really blossomed in the show and been a good addition), and of course, Celebrimbor and Annatar. The tension in this episode between the characters is slowly building, simmering below the surface, ready to explode (quite literally in some cases). In the next two episodes we will definitely see some of that tension released. Especially since there have been major hints, and if you know the source material, you’ll know that the build-up is about to release into a flurry of events that definitely aren’t going to end all that happy at this point in time.
Image Source: Geeks and Gamers
One criticism that isn’t honestly that big, but still needs to be said is that there is one part that is very Hallmark movie-esque. It’s strange and doesn’t fit because it feels forced. In the first season, even though there were many complaints about Arondir and Bronwyn, at least they’d known each other for a long time. It almost felt like the writers were like: Oh, we need to have a spark of romance because we haven’t had that this season really so here’s a thing that feels very out of place. Most of the time, that doesn’t work and feels forced, and it was weird albeit, still at least, a little cute.
We also, once again, are introduced to another creature in Middle-earth, which isn’t technically in Tolkien’s writings specifically, however, there were many creatures that Tolkien mentioned briefly throughout the Middle-earth and Arda, but didn’t go in depth with. It was neat to get to see another one of these brought to screen, showing even more depth of story and immersion into the world.
There is so much more to be said about this episode, but for now, we will wait to see what the other two have in store for us. The story is definitely reaching its climax of the season. There are still quite a few questions that the writers haven’t answered, but at this point in Season One, we also felt like there was so much still to wrap up and somehow, they did wrap up quite a bit. So we will have to wait and see what else we shall find out and see in this season.
CultureSlate gives this episode a 3.5 out of 5
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