The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power Season 1 Episode 2 Review

[Herbert Playz]

Episode 2 seemed to be a bit meandering. Instead of speeding things up it seemed to slow the pace down even more.

I liked them showing the cultural traditions of the dwarves. Elrond engaging in a rock breaking contest with Duren was cool. Its a game that I can easily imagine the dwarves actually having. However, Duren's anger at Elrond was a little over the top.

It seems like Duren was angry at Elrond because he hasn't visited him in 20 years. I agree that its a long time but couldn't Duren have gone to visit Elrond? Also its cool that they've seemingly added the archon stone into this story but it felt like a plot point that could have been reintroduced later. 

I was much more interested in learning more about the fate of Ardonis and the orcs that were tunneling underground attacking human villages.

Also, Galadriel's lost at sea segment was entirely too long. She had to climb up onto a raft 3 different times this episode. It began to felt a bit like the writers said okay for episode 2 Galadriel is going to be stranded at sea the entire time how can we make that remotely interesting.

I feel like the episode would have worked a lot better if she was pulled out of the water by the humans. Lighting strikes she falls into the water unconscious and the human Halbrand dives in to save her. So we still get a scene where they establish trust and then around the middle of the episode they wake up starving and thirsty but arrive at a city. This would speed things along much better and would have made her journey more interesting. The pacing is all wrong for Galadriel is episode 2.

Also, its looking more and more like the tall stranger found by the halfling is Mithrandir/Gandalf. Or perhaps its another one of the lesser known Maiar either way. We can already see them speaking to animals, making trees sway and sprout, definitely someone really powerful. And the timing of his arrival just screams Gandalf/ helper of middle earth.

I'm looking forward to his grand reveal.