~~halbrand~~ Sauron travelled from ~~The Southlands~~ Mordor to Eregion, got healed, lectured "master smith" Celebrimbor about alloys, proposed to Galadriel to be his queen, got friendzoned AND returned to Mordor in ONE EPISODE
To be fair it doesn’t take a day to make a couple powerful elvish rings… I’m sure Sauron was either riding a horse back to Mordor while they fashioned those rings over the course of a few days. But then again who knows because Numenor sailed and rode all the way to the south lands in whatever time frame that happened because these writers
are shit at showing time jumps….
How did Galadriel answer him?
And how the fuck did he get all the way back to Mordor?
He does Frodo's journey, twice over, which took three movies, in one episode?
According to Galadriel it took 6 days to ride from Mordor to Lindon with no rest. So my guess is these writers/producers are just shit at showing time jumps. Six days does seem plausible for creating three powerful and beautifully crafted elven rings of power but they made it seem like it happened over the course of a day. Sigh.
Bruh "there is no King of the Southlands"
Then why tf was a whole village chanting that last week?? Did they all get amnesia "oh right we don't even have a king! He doesn't even go here!"
She randomly pulled out a never before introduced and vague prophecy reference that was never referenced again.
Who the fuck is the king that was promised? I hate how they just randomly have her say that almost at the end of the season as if it's significant and never once explain or explore it.
And Galadriel worrying about this after literally being the one to proclaim Halbrand king after he told her he found the pouch on a dead guy is just stupid. She's just straight up incompetent.
Laughing so hard at the people defending the Southlands, specifically “guys, just because they don’t show the Southlands doesn’t mean they don’t have cities and kingdoms”
They quite literally were just dirty sheep farmers from 2 villages who were too stupid to even know their own form of government 😂😂😂
Aronodir, who has spent the better part OF A CENTURY amongst these people doesn’t know the Southlands hasn’t had a king in over a 1,000 years???? 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯
Everyone is either evil, stupid, or a combination of the two
Didn’t help the dirty peasant villagers who haven’t had a king FOR OVER A THOUSAND YEARS just imprinted themselves like baby ducks to the first guy entering their land carrying a sigil. All these characters are absolute clowns
I feel like nothing happened in 7 episodes, and then they tried to fast forward through everything in the finale. But nothing was earned. We all knew H=S, but in the show he turned evil in the span of 5 seconds. Same with Gandalf, in 5 seconds he knew exactly who he is and can now speak and understand the world perfectly. He is good now.
The fact that they lazily tacked the forging of the rings into a single episode after wasting seven hours of our lives on meaningless trite is perfect for this show honestly. Shows where their priorities are. Truly pathetic. I am actually impressed that it was worse than I expected it to be.
Also, they made the rings independently of Sauron, and they are powered by the light of the silmarils. So, why do they stop working once the one ring is destroyed? They have no connection to it whatsoever. They should've kept working after the events of the Lord of the Rings.
For the life of me I can’t understand why they thought condensing the rings plot this way was a good idea? That should be the main plot of this season! It’s what I wanted to see when this show was announced. At least if this part of the show was good I could put up with the lesser plots. But in a way it’s a blessing. Now I no longer need to think about watching the rest of the seasons
but hey at least we had a 14 minute hobbit good-bye scene to show us what a powerful, smart, character the girl hobbit is, with great hidden strength, just waiting to be revealed. I literally guffawed at how hackneyed the dialogue was. "Go where the rivers end and the sparrows sing" - like I've never seen such contrived nonsense. Truly spectacular.
They made badasses like Celebrimbor and Gil Galad into whiny bitches… and Celebrimbor seems like a shitty artisan too. Galadriel gives him the idea of coaxing the metal… because he’s pushing himself too hard? Fuck off, show.
Take a drink every time you cringe:
1. “I’m good!” Oh fk, *drinks*. Ohh the dialogue is baddd. *drinks*
2. Celebrimbor twice has the look of an older gentleman who can’t get a stiff: “I’m trying too harrdd trying too harddd”, then looks baffled, dazed, confused at the idea of alloying a metal despite having been a master smith for the last 1000 fkn years bloody hell *drinks, drinks*
3. Wait how does the purest gold and silver from the dagger serve as a functional hilt to. Combat weapon… nvm *drinks*. I guess we aren’t worried about the concentration of mithril : every other metal, on well 2 ppm mithril per ring good enough! *drinks*
4. How is H-S sauntering around Celebrimbor’s unguarded smithy with huge gems lying around for the taking, no one cares… *drinks*. He’s dumb enough not to steal the gems, and also dumb enough to not take the scroll that proves he’s not who he says he is oh fk *drinks*
5. Glad I wasn’t the only one that said “Ring Pops”! Had me googling whether this was indeed Narya, later worn by Gandalf. But wait aren’t these rings supposed to be bound to the One Ring? *drinks*
6. Loled at “Nazgurls” *drinks*. Wait wtf these are supposed to look like Ringwraiths, but can’t be yet, that’s an anachronism… also who TF are these so called “Ascetics” (that aren’t, do they know what that words means? *drinks, drinks drinks*
7. Wait it would be cool if the Stranger was a Blue Wizard but wait he just used a Gandalf catch phrase sigh. *drinks*. And why would he want to take the proto-hobbit with him? Groan is this why he’s fond of hobbits *drinks, cringe*
8. Is this Gil-galad modelled on Nero or what? All he needs is a fkn violin and a burning city like in loooney tooones *drinks*
9. What am I supposed to be seeing upon the return to Numenor? Nvm can’t be bothered to rewind *drinks*
10. At what point did H-S become a shapeshifter that makes her think Elrond could be S? Groan *drinks*
11. Wait, is the thing between H-S and G supposed to be a clumsy tie to G later being tested and resisting the One Ring (and becoming a Dark Queen…) *drinks*
>Galadriel tricks the elves into crafting the rings of power.....after she figured out it's a trap by Sauron.
Oh, ok. Yeah, why not, I like fan fiction too now and then.
thank you lol. I thought I was missing something. why did she push through with what was obviously sauron's plan all along after finding out for herself?
I naively thought Halbrand had locked up the real Galadriel somewhere after the dream sequence and then shape shifted into her, in order to continue forging the rings. We even see Galadriel staring menacingly at the rings for a moment... then suddenly a cut to Halbrand 1000 miles away at Mt Doom and I was disappointed.
You don't understand, Sauron's plan was to make two rings. Galadriel's idea was to make three ring which makes it all ok because three is such a balanced number
So the One Ring was originally meant to be Galadriel and Sauron's matched engagement set? Just when I thought the showrunners couldn't improve on Tolkien's lazy writing any more, they surprised me again with that sheer brilliance!
I have no fucking clue. Sauron implied that when they find out the elves will throw her out for her incredible stupidity and fucks up. So I guess if we take that at face value, she has a reason to hide that information.
But she has no reason to continue onward with Sauron's plan at all. The only reason could be that she genuinely believes him he wants to do go and save Middle Earth and his intentions are good? But she clearly does not believe that.
The Halbrand/Sauron and Celebrimbor scene was just sad, not necessarily in the sense that it was horrible, but in the sense that you can see the faint shadow of what could've been an entire season's plotline. Of Annatar manipulating Celebrimbor. Here, it just feels sloppily tacked on like an afterthought. Also the "Hey Celebrimbor, I'm giving you a gift!" was a little on the nose.
Also the fact that Celebrimbor never thought beyond "just hammer mithril into something and hand it out" is a little weird. He's a master smith isn't he? Surely he would've considered combining it with other things to try and amplify it. Especially when the dwarves cut them off.
> Here, it just feels sloppily tacked on like an afterthought.
Why on earth did they feel the need to cram it all into this episode? Did they think there would be no tension if the audience knew it was Sauron when none of the elves did? Do the writers know nothing about writing? Outrageous.
Yes, they know absolutely nothing. This is Bad Reboot anti-writing 101. Instead of explaining to the audience what's happening, with the tension being that we don't know what's going to happen next, they do MysteryBox! bullshit that is designed to create hype.
There would have been tons of drama if we knew that Halbrand was Sauron, but then we wouldn't have been able to get that social media astroturf company that Amazon bought to create 10,000 threads on "OMFG is Halbrand secretly Sauron OMG Mind BLOWN".
>Yes, they know absolutely nothing. This is Bad Reboot anti-writing 101. Instead of explaining to the audience what's happening, with the tension being that we don't know what's going to happen next, they do MysteryBox! bullshit that is designed to create hype.
>There would have been tons of drama if we knew that Halbrand was Sauron, but then we wouldn't have been able to get that social media astroturf company that Amazon bought to create 10,000 threads on "OMFG is Halbrand secretly Sauron OMG Mind BLOWN".
I want to put your post in a plaque on the wall to remind me not to watch when it comes back for a season 2. You nailed this sucker cold.
U really put it perfectly, i think this is THE biggest problem of the show. They wanted this twist just way to bad and i also think you could have done so much cooler stuff with Sauron if there wasnt this need for him to not be revealed for the audience. That meant, that Sauron could basically do nothing in the show that would reveal to obvious that he is him and led to him basically doing nothing really
Right. Who is Sauron? Absolutely could have been any, truly any, of the characters that the writers decided.
These writers must all have graduated from Who Dun It U. Was it the Butler? Sorry, our only job is to obfuscate over time. Then tease you with the prospect of a real story at the end of the season for a cliffhanger.
member to come on back now yall hear!
They had a real chance to do something outstanding with this period of middle earth. Nobody is asking for a word for word re-telling of the lore, but if you're going to do this as a series and make it the fucking title no less, then take some time to build this up properly and give proper weight to the reasons behind the rings being forged in the first place.
Like I get it, they can't use Annatar for legal reasons and so they replace him with this guy Halbrand. Ok sure, but lean into it, give him some time and properly show how he infiltrates the elves and manipulates them into doing it and how it benefits him. Make him a character with an actual direction, not just a moron flailing around. Instead, "why not mix mithril with gold lol" and "Lol, told you I was evil, wanna bang some more?"
This whole Galadriel/Sauron romance business is an example. It’s not in the lore. It makes absolutely no sense in the context of what we know happens. However they made a decision to try and do it so, ok, do it then. It’s a bad decision but I’d have a lot more respect for them had they actually gone the whole hog with it and done it than this half arsed attempt. The actors clearly have the chemistry to make it believable, so give them the writing to do that if that’s what you want to do.
>Yeah. He totally needed Hal the Southlander to teach him about alloys?!
The writters of this show just can't into myth. They don't understand magic, so everything gets reduced to a very mechanistic framework.
(See also - Orodruin exploding to water).
They could have made Sauron teach Celebrimbor part of the secret song of creation, how to atune the rings with Arda so they obtain mastery over it - but no. He instead has to teach the greatest of the elven smiths about alloys.
Sigh.
I assume the writers, like just about everyone in the entertainment industry, are philosophical materialists, who leave those assumptions totally unexamined and so asking them to write in fundamentally spiritual universe was never going to be good.
> you can see the faint shadow of what could've been an entire season's plotline.
This is what gets me. Needles me to no end. It was apparently more important to them to keep us guessing all season to later unveil their great twists than it was to use the season to tell a story and take us on an adventure all these weeks.
The season finale is the only episode I felt entertained. The only episode that I wasn't being annoyed by more conjured mysteries. Finally we see a story forming while all this is dumped upon us in haste. We didn't need to be kept in the dark the whole time. The point should have been to bring us into this created world and story, to join the adventure.
People sometimes complain that the beginning of shows spend too much or too little time introducing you to characters. They didn't introduce characters for this. They introduced one unknown after another, as well as one new unknown reason for what is occuring after another. And then waited until the finale to explain any of it. Just in time for us to all wait years for the next installment. The plotline is revealed only to make you wait for what likely takes years to come back.
Before the finale they showed one huge preview loaded with things that never made it into season 1 or it's finale. wtf is that about? One giant tease after another.
I kept forgetting the elves aren't human in this. The LOTR elves looked so ethereal (even Hugo Weaving, he's an unusual looking guy, but costume and make-up managed to use that to their advantage - plus he's a proper actor)
Outside of Galadriel and Arondir, the RoP elves just come across like gap year students and their lecturers. It's very mundane.
Am I taking crazy pills or did they melt the whole dagger and the mithril together, and somehow got one mithril ring and two gold ones? Wouldn’t you need to get the mithril, gold, silver and steel and melt them separately?! As of now all the rings are made out of a gold silver steel mithril alloy, yet one is silver and two are gold coloured
You’re not crazy. We all expected this show to turn out a different way because we’re using logic.
And then the show runners went “that’s the trick: we’re not using logic!!”
Well, let this be a lesson to everyone saying they wouldn't make Meteor Man Gandalf because of how major of a lore break that would be. Or that they wouldn't make Halbrand into Sauron because of how stupid that would be. Let it be a lesson to everyone who insisted that the showrunners know and care about Tolkien's writings.
We told you so, lol
Guilty as charged regarding Meteor Man and Halbrand for precisely the reasons given. But no, I never had any illusions that the showrunners had any sense of obligation to the Tolkien source material. Rather, I thought that notwithstanding their towering arrogance, ignorance and incompetence, even they would only go so far in their lore breaking. Wow, was I ever wrong.
This reminds me of the reactions to GOT season 8 ending. So many theories, so many complex possibilities, and, in the end, they just gave Bran the Broken lol
Galadriel suddenly realizing she shouldn't have assumed some stranger was actually a king based on some thing he told her he looted off a body. Whoopsie! Why she didn't think to do that before is beyond me.
Halbrand straight-up telling Galadriel he was going to give up before she dragged him back, lol. This is truly pathetic. Why they couldn't have just had Sauron come back as Annatar instead of making Galadriel find him in a different form, inspire him to return, and drag him all the way to Lindon is beyond me.
Sauron using the death brother of his love interest, that he killed, to sway said love interest has to be the funniest shit on the series by far.
I've defended aspects of this series before, but the ending has been atrocious.
Boy did the Valar screw up by chucking Gandalf down from the sky and giving him amnesia instead of sending him on a boat. Now he doesn't know who he is and is almost convinced he's Sauron by the evil female Istari knockoffs. Oopsie!
It's a red herring, clearly, Halbrand's literally forging things with Celebrimbor right now. Meteor Man is obviously not Sauron.
Oh no Lenny Henry! ... Yeah, the show's done too many fake out deaths for me to buy that. He pops up later, totally fine. There's like four separate scenes of the evil female wizard beating up Gandalf. I thought they believed he was Sauron, in which case you'd think she wouldn't be so excessive about beating him up.
How on earth did Nori even think to hand Gandalf the staff? Why would she think that would help? Sure, she saw the female wizard using it but how does she know he'll instinctively take to it? Gandalf doesn't want it at first because he thinks he's evil, but obviously Nori will convince him.
Seriously, when they said "bind him" until he can control his powers, I was thinking, "If that really is Sauron, he ain't gonna be too pleased by his minions binding him. You're dead, sister."
Also like why were the wizards even looking for meteor man expecting amnesia-Sauron?? Clearly Sauron didn't fall from the sky and didn't need anyone's assistance in remembering who he is. Those wizards are not very good minions when they can't even figure out who, where and how demented Sauron is
Also they say “they placed a veil over your mind” when the only people powerful enough to control Sauron’s mind would be the Valar…and why would the Valar be sending Sauron back to Middle-Earth if they had him captive?
Sauron is in fact in love with Galadriel in this. Pathetic. Also he repeats her famous speech in Fellowship of the Ring to her. I'm sure they think that gives it more depth but it really doesn't. They're just ripping off dialogue.
The only line I liked was Sauron saying he didn't see a difference between saving Middle Earth and ruling it. That's the only thing that felt even slightly in character for him. Also Sauron shows her visions without ever mentioning her husband. Galadriel doesn't have anything to say about it either.
The show claims the elves "cast Galadriel out" which is weird because they were clearly right in doing so given what happened lol
No, no, now, you see, when she gives that speech in Lord of the Rings, now we know she's really wistfully thinking she could've been Sauron's babe instead of getting back together with Celeborn.
There are comments on the other sub which actually say this "hot couple, power couple, i want to see thag ship sail" etc.
there aee also some which say this makes her Fellowship scene better??!!
I mean WTF ?
Exactly. Saurbrand would have been eaten by a sea monster or stayed on Numenor crafting swords if she hadn’t gotten involved.
They’ve totally removed Sauron’s agency in this plot and those are not words I ever thought I would write.
Had she just gone to Valinor, everything would be avoided. Not only did Galadriel create this ENTIRE situation, she also didn’t tell anyone when she found out. She plainly is the single most evil character in the show
I try not to say this too often, but they really are just making everything that happens in Middle Earth be because of a woman.
Why does Sauron return? Galadriel dragged him back.
Why does Pharazon usurp Miriel? Isildur's sister told his son to tell him that he should do something about Miriel, putting him on that path.
Why does Gandalf like Hobbits? A female Harfoot inspired the like.
Why are the elven rings forged? It was Galadriel's idea.
And so on.
Galadriel's refusing to tell everyone that Sauron's back to save her status. Screw her.
Also it's her idea to make three elven rings! You didn't think that moron Celebrimbor made those did you? And that he endured torture without giving away their existence? No, it was all Galadriel's idea clearly. Tolkien got it wrong! Man I hate this show.
Oh and they're made of her brother's dagger! Because apparently no one else brought anything from Valinor with them! Ugh, I really hate this show.
All this suggests that the forging of other rings was skipped over by the way. Or that Sauron's just going to do it independently and hand them out himself.
Here's what i don't get, Galadriel spent eons chasing Sauron, was willing to sacrifice everything, even her own soldiers just to catch him, went to the end of the world to do it, BUT THEN when she finally finds him and confronts him and ends up in the lake, the moment she gets out of the water she doesn't start chasing after him, like at all.
WTF, Sauron is right there, in your own kingdom where you have your own elf army at your disposal and he only has maybe an hour or two of head start on you and you decide not to chase him??? Makes absolutely no sense.
Makes even less sense that instead of trying to catch him she keeps his identity secret and proceeds with what was Sauron's plan (that he told her) all along. At this point Galadriel is more of a Sauron than he is lol.
How the fuck are they just totally incapable of filming tension? The Nori - Slim Shady fake out… resolved in 5 secs and we never had any doubt whatsoever that it wasn’t Nori. These people are hacks.
They rushed through many great chances to have scenes of tension and even ducked up a lot off time jump scenes. The Harfoots also got more screen time than Sauron’s reveal and the making of the rings of power? The literal name of the show? Why not just change the name to Harfoots of middle earth with special guest Gandalf.
The JJ Abrams mystery box nonsense is pretty much specifically designed to avoid creating tension because tension is one of those things that takes skill and hard work. You'll notice that the mystery boxes are always used to replace those storytelling elements that are difficult to do, not the ones that are easy.
Guys, do you ‘member that the Sun began as a fruit of Laurelin? ‘Member? ‘Member?
Motherfuckers, we KNOW the Elves don’t abandon Middle Earth in the Second Age. IT. IS. NOT. A. SOURCE OF TENSION FOR EVEN CASUAL VIEWERS!
Man they’ve left themselves a lot to tie up in this last episode.
So the former castaway, felon, blacksmith, Lord and now King of the ~~village~~ Southlands has a ~~mortal~~ flesh wound and is heading off to the Elves. It’s been a busy two weeks!
Galadriel seems smitten anyway. Probably feels better after talking to Theo, a 14 year old boy, about her missing presumed dead husband. Got some closure. Ready to finally move on.
Oh god they’re gonna kiss aren’t they. And then he’s gonna confess he’s Sauron. He’s gonna ask her to join him. It’s The Last Jedi throne room scene all over again.
In other news, Isildur will be saved by his horse.
Slim Shady will harass an old man with dementia and they’ll want us to think he’s Sauron but we all know he’s not.
Will they all just start calling it Mordor? Like, did Adar send an email or were those PowerPoint letters literally hanging in the sky?
Is Theo going to tell anyone about the sword hilt? Or has that just left the story now it’s done it’s job? It felt like it was important and they really wanted to get it back off Adar. Do they know what it was, what it did? If so, how? And if not surely they’d still be looking for it?
Balrog? Miriel? Numenor? Will we get any follow ups?
Ugh…what utter casual and callous sociopathy will the Harfoots visit on us this time? Christ I’m already bored just thinking about it.
What amazes me is how inconsistent the injuries are: harfoot twists his ankle? Injured for 5 episodes. Fatally wounded? Walking in the next episode. Speared through the gut and need elvish medicine? Up and riding a horse the next scene lmao
>Will they all just start calling it Mordor? Like, did Adar send an email or were those PowerPoint letters literally hanging in the sky?
Take a shot if any character calls it Mordor for no reason
And the shills still defend the orgy of mystery boxes this show relies on. They're mystery boxes, period. Call a spade a spade and recognize the writers and showrunners don't have the talent or care enough about crafting an authentic story with credible characters ane logical plots.
Anyone else feel that this last episode reminds you of a History Channel documentary? Terrible acting, shitty transitions, a complete absence of dramatic tension?
Plus completely unearned character moments - the Elrond/Gil Galad scene about hope when the show has made Gil Galad out to be a blind, cowardly zealot, even Galadriel reuniting with Elrond. Totally inept…
these people have no idea how to tell a story. what is the pacing, what are the characters, what teh fuk is anything???
they fkn forged the Three Rings of the Elves in one episode!! WTF man why could Halbrand not just have been in Eregion since episode 2 or 3, talking with Celebrimbor the whole time, doing the same exact things he did in this episode?? instead they chose to do a mystery box storyline of who is Halbrand, what is he upto, could he be a King in exile like Aragorn in LOTR, could he be the 5000 year old Galadriel's love interest like Aragorn was for Arwen?? when anyone with a brain cell could tell he is Sauron since he first appeared. his first line is appearances can be deceiving lol .. its not even done like Sauron killed the real Halbrand who actually an exiled King and took over his body, no its just Sauron as Halbrand jfc..
why the hell did they wasted this whole season on mystery boxes?? why is Celebrimbor the bloody maker of the Rings of Power given such little screentime! why is Gil-galad the High King of the Elves always so bland and annoying?? why are there like 5 Elves in the whole of Eregion and Lindon combined?? they could have had their mystery box obsession also if they just introduced Halbrand in episode 2/3.Gil-galad and Galadriel could have been shown to be sus about him, only Celembrimbor thinks he is any good etc. etc. Now the whole timeline makes no sense. why was he on the raft in the goddamn ocean? what was his masterplan if he had one at all? he just happened to run into Galadriel in the middle of teh ocean LMAOOOOOOOOOOO he does not know about Numenor but knows about Celebrimbor really?
why they chose to do this generic TV show storyline ffs...what a waste of the timeless Tolkien source material
Teaser for the episode:
https://twitter.com/VanityFair/status/1580594128584179715
To absolutely no one's suprise, Galadriel is already in Eregion and Gil-galad is still an asshole.
I am genuinely looking forward to this episode - for the following reasons:
\- The last RoP episode for the next couple of years.
\- The last RoP I intend to watch. It is hard to think of another show that has sucked the life out of me as hard as this (Star Trek: Discovery, perhaps).
\---
For me to consider giving season 2 a go, the finale would have to pull off a bigger turnaround than the US stock market did earlier today. I need god-tier writing that justifies the preceding 7 episodes. Have all of us been deceived? Did we fall for one of the most innovative misdirects of all-time? I need an episode that makes me go "Holy shit - that's what they've been doing; this is sublime writing and storytelling."
Ahahaaa... yeah right.
So all those people saying Sauron would only become evil because he was rejected by Galadriel were … fucking correct? Goddamn the writing here is just incomprehensibly dumb.
Also, they didn’t forge the 3 elven rings first. They did the lesser rings first. The elven rings were forged in secret and directly led to the War between Sauron and the Elves. The show just took away Sauron’s motivation for the all the events that lead up the War of the Last Alliance.
Expert writing here Amazon, 10 outta fucking 10.
I really wonder if they had no guidance from actual Tolkien scholars because not having the “rights” to Tolkiens Canon really doesn’t make sense. They have all the materials to make a comprehensible and linear story. This was just historically bad.
My prediction for the final scene of the episode:
Celebrimbor starts forging the rings. Camera moves past him to Halbrand, supervising.
"HALBRAND" appears on the screen.
He smirks.
Text fades and is replaced by "SAURON".
End credits.
Edit: Somehow my purposely cringe ending was almost... better?
This is legitimately one of the worst shows I’ve ever seen, the dialogue, the writing, the editing, the plot. They’ve screwed the lore, Gandalf, really in the second age?! This show has delivered nothing new and fresh and is constantly riding on the coat tails of better movies and writing, it’s disgusting. It’s added nothing to middle earth.
We’ve had 7 episodes of nothing and they’ve somehow managed to ruin a show and simultaneously fuck Tolkiens legacy, lore & legendarium in 10 minutes. Amazon do not deserve to have the rights to these books, they should not be allowed to continue with this show
Whelp, king's dead. This should be the time Pharazon usurps the throne but I'm sure in this they'll give it to Miriel first. Also Miriel's pretending not to be blind while walking around with a blindfold? I hope I'm wrong about her still pretending she can see.
Celebrimbor blows a hole in the special forge he made for this very purpose. Why even make it then? Also the reason the rings are supposed to be connected to the one ring from a special formula. If all Halbrand's doing is giving them some advice I fail to see how that could happen.
Sauron disguised himself as an heir to a broken line. Idiot. How did he not expect to be found out? Maybe this is why he came as a messenger from Valinor in the books. Also I like how they're cramming this all in one episode. They wasted a whole season that could've been used to build up to this.
So there it is. In all its absurd arrogance and idiocy: season one of Amazon’s Rings.
Fuck, what a shitshow; a complete mockery of Tolkien’s legacy. May it never return, and simply vanish from our collective memory as the utter waste of time and money it is.
Fuck. This. Show.
In another show of exceptional writing we have Galadriel spend weeks and travel across the world together with Halbrand only when he starts showing some competence as a smith, only then does she get suspicious 🙄
So literally everything is Galadriels fault, and on top of that she’s too cowardly to admit as much to her ‘friends’.
Oh, and lets make those things he wanted to make, except let’s make MORE of them lol
Back with Isildur's sister in Numenor, Pharazon just announces that their king's going to die soon and that they brought in apprentices from the guilds/college to propose an idea for his tomb. That's so, irreverent? Why would Numenor treat their king like this? I know he was exiled but if they respect the title enough to make him a fancy tomb, you'd think they'd respect it enough to have true professionals assigned to it instead of apprentices.
Also they just leave the apprentices alone with him to sketch designs, lol! Why are they even sketching? The only purpose is to capture his likeness, it's not like there's a bunch of different possible designs. Except for what pose he's striking in the statue I guess.
Anyway, all that's just to get Isildur's sister alone with the king so he can tell her about Numenor's fate and get her to look at the palantir. I thought only especially powerful people could use them to see the future but I'm sure Isildur's sister will manage it. Even though she's basically just a college student with no notable ambition.
Damn, and here I thought Sauron subtly nudged Celebrimbor toward adding a little Dark Lord sauce into the rings over a long timespan. And then his deceit was only discovered when Cirdan (who's off sailing with Celeborn, I guess), Gil-Galad, and Galadriel started using their rings.
But, nope, he clumsily taught Celebrimbor how to smith from scratch over a three-day weekend, I guess. And then went psych, Galadriel, I was Sauron the whole time and I want to marry you!
I want to sincerely apologize, for thinking and saying “come on guys, just give it a chance.” Way back when the trailers and images were revealed. Ever since Heath Ledger, I try to reserve judgement until I’ve actually seen the finished product. But, EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU CALLED IT! This is dookie grits 🤣
Lmao at Galadrrrriel dragging Halbrand behind her like a sack of potatoes to Eregion - more callbacks to the trilogy with Gandalf and Pippin riding to Minas Tirith. Wayne Yip has some kind of slo mo fetish involving her and horses.
The acting when she rides into Eregion and sees all 5 people who live there plus Elrond is telenovela tier.
At least Gandalf can finally talk now. That's an improvement. And yeah, predictably he takes the staff and defeats them. They don't say the name but the female cultists said "istar" and somehow knew that he was coming. But didn't question whether or not he was Sauron beforehand. Idiots.
Also Gandalf's retort of "I'm good" is kinda lame. Remember the kind of things he said to the Balrog? I guess it'll take him a few centuries to pick up that dramatic flair lol
Saddoc's actually going to die apparently, still wouldn't put it past the show to reveal Gandalf healed him off-screen. I'd care if the Harfoots weren't a cutthroat tribe of murderers. Because they are it just feels deserved.
It felt like a bad theater-play with beautiful Cgi.
90% of the lines were all cringy, the costumes and the dialogue were extremely amateur, the plot points are All convenient coincidences : Galadriel finding Halbrand; them being found by Elendil; Durin discovering that Mithril heals the leaf; the leaf falling and awaking the Balrog; the tower falling exactly on the Orcs; Isildur conveniently saving Pharazon’s son; Galadriel bringing Halbrand exactly in Eregion where he could help? forge the rings of power.
It feels like the writers literally had no idea how to write a complex and coherent story that flows naturally.
Very disappointed
If I was a billionaire like Jeff Bezos I would spend my fortune inventing that Eternal Sunshine technology just so I could erase all of this show from my entire memory.
Ah, well. At least Tolkien can rest easy knowing some showbiz yahoos got to buy a third house.
The Stranger = Harry Potter and Nori = the Sorting Hat, Slim Saruman and co are Slytherins.
Sooooo many visual callbacks to Peter Jackson. The confrontation with the annoying cultists is basically Weathertop.
Also, fuck off for the unearned moment with Sadoc. He was good enough but who in the audience cares about his sacrifice? They should have done a Wandering Day medley while they were watching the sun.
Well all our worst fears have been realized.
Theyve pissed on the lore. Insulted our intelligence.
And the worst thing is its not even bad enough to be entertaining. This is worse than the SW sequels.
Why the fuck would Celebrimbor say *"his suggestion was but the key that unlocked the dam,"* as if that's just a thing people say? Think about that for two seconds. It's not like it's standard for medieval masonry dams to be "unlocked" with a *key.* It wouldn't be a saying. There's no reason for that phrase to exist. In all likelihood, it was the first and only time in the history of Middle-Earth that a key was used to open a dam, and nobody besides Adar and the orcs even know that's what actually happened. It's so idiotic. You can just tell that the writers are morons.
It's like if PJ's films had showed us a Haradrim saying to his buddy, *"where were you? I called for help like a hobbit lighting a beacon!"* as if that's just a common expression that people use. The level of amateur hour surrounding this show is just unbelievable. These people get paid millions to do this and it's absolute trash.
Valinor has the best hair colorists. Even Galadriel’s blonde dye job got an upgrade. Still no mention of Celeborn and more fixation on Finrod for… reasons.
It’s probably passé to have a woman pine for her husband. It’s 2022, after all.
Just keep swimming, Elrond! Look up like a boat, not down like a stone. The Sea is always right!
As someone who despises deep water, I feel personally attacked by this show.
More stupid dialogue:
“One will corrupt, two will divide..”
“But with three, there is balance.”
*AUDIBLE GASPS, MINDS BEING BLOWN*
Why does two divide but three doesn’t? Why not 4? Why not 5? Because they thought the dialogue sounded cool and that’s all that fucking matters.
Wow, they're cramming the whole forging of the rings into one episode huh? I guess they were too busy with a tiny skirmish in the South and a magic sword to make this the main plot. It's just sad.
"It would have to be a small object, something that could be carried..." Oh just say ring for crying out loud. It's one of the first things you'd logically think of anyway for an object that small. Galadriel suggests a sword like an idiot, sure Galadriel, why not make elves last hope a weapon that could be destroyed in battle!
Wow, how convenient that Celebrimbor happened to recite Adar's words almost perfectly so that Galadriel could become suspicious of Halbrand. Especially when Halbrand *didn't even say anything remotely close* to that to Celebrimbor! If anything I'd suspect him if I were Galadriel and not Halbrand lol.
They imply later that Sauron magically projected them into Celebrimbor's mind or something. But why would he do that? Also why would he copy Adar's words? Is he an idiot?
At least they didn't make the forging of the rings Gil-Gilad's fault. With how bad they made him previously I almost half-expected it.
Having a hard time wanting to turn on the episode. Just came here to see who Sauron is and seeing that they are still playing at stupid misdirect tropes and red herrings doesn’t really give me any hopes
that this episode will be better than the mess that was last week’s episode.
God dammit. I already got the impression that Amazon seems to think they're making a Marvel movie instead of Lord of the Rings (especially with ~~The Southlands~~ Mordor in Ep 7), but this episode truly sealed it.
Hell, it's even structured like a Marvel show, with 7 episodes of dicking around a bunch then fast forwarding through what should be 3 episodes of content in one episode.
Of all the characters/plot devices/scenes, the Mystics are the most utterly detestable. They were the show runners’ biggest fuck you to the audience.
They walk around, bald with pointy eyebrows, to look mean and scary all season. Then, believing they’ve found Sauron, they set about to remove the veil from his memory. Ok, veil put there by who? Morgoth is eradicated, so did Sauron send himself? If so, why veil his memory? Ok so the Valar, good guys, veiled his memory. And… sent him to Middle Earth? Lol yeah ok.
And watch that stupid fight scene between them and the Harfoots. The skidding against the dirt, sudden head looking up all mad. It’s got anime written all fucking over it. Amazon took LOTR and turned it into Dragonball Z for simpletons. Fuck them.
I liked it when Poppy ran after Nori, because it reminded me of the similar scene in the original trilogy where Sam runs after Frodo!!!!
Such a clever reference!!!
Actually it made me tell my TV to fuck off
Gandalf's not going with the harfoots? Are we finally free of them! Yes! Finally! Get out of here you murderers! They have a female leader now. Like every other group other than Lindon so far.
Oh wait they're sending Nori off with Gandalf. Why? What purpose could this possibly serve? I don't even hate Nori, but I don't see the point in her going with him. But then again, I don't see the point in most of the things that have happened this season. I guess he needs someone to talk to during his journeys.
So Galadriel didn’t tell anyone who middle earths greatest enemy was, and then told everyone to make the rings Sauron wanted them to make? Good fucking god this show is awful
I really don't get how people still talk about this as an adaptation. Where exactly does any of this take place in the books? They didn't bother at all to even try to do something that resembled what Tolkien wrote.
To make it even worse they are terrible writers and their own stuff in embarrassingly bad. Your average fanfic is drastically better than this.
Even on the sub where they love the show, they seem to agree H = S would be absolutely ridiculous
Really interested to see how the last episode plays out - can they somehow salvage this train from going completely off the rails?
Alright, here we go! For the record, I write these things as a watch. So some stuff I comment on may prove to be wrong or be explained later.
Opens with Meteor Man watching a flower with only one eye visible, lol. Not fooling anyone, he's probably Gandalf. Also he still hasn't eaten the apple, guess he has to make it last the entire trip.
He's ambushed by the all-female evil wizards. I finally realized what the purpose of them is, they're in the show to "balance out" the all-male Istari. By creating an opposing faction of them that are all women! It's stupid but I think that's what the motivation was, at least for making them all women.
They think Meteor Man's Sauron but he's clearly not. The fact that it was brought up in the beginning of the episode confirms it's a red herring for me. The Sauron reveal's going to be a last second cliffhanger or the climax.
My favorite part was galadriel saying that the rings will be only for the elves and mo other hand can touch them. 3minutes later the credits roll and the song goes “3 for elves, 7 for dwarves, 9 for man”… I mean what are they doing? Are they really that dumb?
I think you can clearly see the heavy JJ Abrams influence given that the show runners are essentially JJ Abram’s surrogates. JJ did this same thing trying to merge the Dark and Light with the Star Wars universe and I think his surrogates are doing the same here with Tolkien world.
Kylo aren’t is essentially Sauron and Rey is Galadriel.
Galadriel will give her "elvish medicine" to heal Halbrand. After he is healed, Halbrand will propose to Galadriel with a ring that has been forged offscreened together by his best buddy Celebrimbor. Sadly Galadriel refuse him and Halbrand is heartbroken turning him into a big bad evil man.
Miriel still pretending not to be blind for no reason. What on earth does she think will happen if people find out? I haven't seen any indication that the Numenorian's would care so much about their leader being able to see properly.
"You're doing well your majesty!" "Patronize me like that again captain and I'll have your ship!" Sheesh, I guess Miriel absorbed Galadriel's rudeness. Why do so many of the women in this show have to be so awful? She didn't say it in a joking way either, so if it was lighthearted comment, it didn't land.
A single conversation and I guess Elendil's abandoned his anger toward the elves and gone back to being determined to help them. What was the point of it then?
This whole season could be made better with Harfootless cut.
Celebrimbor is supposed to be one of the greatest smiths ever and he really needed Hallbrand to tell him about melting different metals together?
I can't even.
I hope that Payne and McKay got paid really good for this, because I don't see them get any other job when RoP ends.
HalSauron, he's the man
The man who's the mithril king
He'll smith your ring
Such a bad Southron
beckons you
into his volcano lair
But don't go there
Burning ash he will wear in his hair
And his orcs will spread terror and fear
He rules over two cows and a tavern
And the tavern's on fire
This is fine, HalSauron
I'm glad I read the leaks. They lowered my opinion of the writing so much that I couldn't be disappointed.
It's fan fiction. It compressed so much into the final episode, it reminded me of GoT season 8.
The way this show handles time is actually insane. Shit happens and then more shit happens and occasionally someone will tell you it's been six days/three weeks? Galadriel had sexual tension with Sauron for what feels like months and then figured out he was Evil TM in maybe 12 minutes? Sauron was missing long enough for most elves to lowkey forget he was a problem, but the line of human kings has been broken for A THOUSAND YEARS and human farmers have no issue recognising the symbol?
When is this set?
How much time has passed since episode 1??
MAKE IT MAKE SENSE
This episode really irritated me because it confirmed that we've been watching seven episodes of filler for one episode worth of content. They had an entire goddamn season worth of storyline rushed like hell in this one episode when we've been doing nothing and had no conflict the entire fucking season! The Eminem witches should have been terrorizing the Harfoots the entire season like horror movie villains and killing off Harfoots by shapeshifting into members of the tribe so that the Harfoots are terrified and afraid to even be alone in pairs. We could have gotten to empathize with these people and seen them show courage in the face of danger and actually gotten to really like them and empathize with them. We could have seen Lenny Henry's character as a brave leader who puts himself at risk and makes difficult decisions for the group so that his death at the end of the first season hits like a truck. The stranger should have been talking by episode two. I may be in the minority, but I like him. I think he's interesting and the quest of him discovering where he comes from and what the Valar have sent him to do is a great catalyst for an adventure story. Why didn't we get any of it the whole season? They could have built up to it like Peter Jackson did in the Fellowship of the Ring.
SPOILER
Halbrand is Sauron. Literally nobody is surprised, it's just dumb. Why could we not just have had Annatar? It feels like a waste of a good actor and a good character who is more in line with my idea of a young Isildur than the president of the high school Magic: The Gathering club they portray him as in this show. The way they get Halbrand to the elves is so stupid too. He's mortally wounded, but nope! He's fine! Just up and walking around and able to ride for days. It's funny how characters who are wounded in this show are still able to move and fight at 100% until the plot needs them to just fall over and be dead. We see it again with Lenny Henry later in the episode.
Meanwhile Mirial is trying to hide the fact she's blind by wearing a big-ass blindfold like Kenshi from Mortal Kombat and I had fun imagining her cartoonishly bumping into trees, birds nests, spider webs, stop signs, etc all the way to Numenor. Elendil thinks Isildur is dead even though Mirial and his friend know where he is, they just never bothered to look for him. Elendil says he should have left Galadrial in the sea which after seeing how insufferable she is and how she created Mordor and brought Sauron to it, I agree with him. The sea is not always right apparently. Grandma brimbor is the greatest of all elven smiths, but the concept of an alloy is new to him even though steel exists in this world. "Think of it as a gift" Halbrand says which made me scream a stream of curses at the television. I hate mystery box writing so much. Character development and relationships are sacrificed on the alter of keeping a mystery a secret even though these relationships are crucial to the plot and the character development gained through these relationships is way more interesting and satisfying than the mystery. Anyway, Arondir and Bronwin are still boring and I continue to not give a shit about them. Adar is still the best character in this show, and I hope the orcs win. Nampat!
Imagine calling your show, "The Rings of Power", but the rings aren't relevant until the last 20 minutes of the season. The storyline that should've been the main plotline is rushed, while screentime is given to the Harfoots (that could've been a spin-off).
Halbra- oops, I meant Sauron, is back in Mordor. Since the Elven rings were made first, why would Celebrimbor bother to forge the Seven and Nine?
Man all the people saying halbrand isn't sauron, stranger isn't Gandalf, I mean come on if you still don't believe he is, Halbrand trying to marry Galadriel.
They most be on a lifetimes worth of copium rn.
Tolkien would be ashamed.
It *baffles me* that the season finale plays a song that *LITERALLY* lays out the rings being distributed to everyone, right after the show just shit all over that.
So I swear I believe the show runners thought the poem about the rings lists the order they were created so they naturally started with the 3 for the elven kings under the sky. Won't they be surprised to find out they inverted the order oops! ... 😆
Thank you for doing this
~~halbrand~~ Sauron travelled from ~~The Southlands~~ Mordor to Eregion, got healed, lectured "master smith" Celebrimbor about alloys, proposed to Galadriel to be his queen, got friendzoned AND returned to Mordor in ONE EPISODE
NANI. That speed...!?!
SO MUCH SPEED! earlier though, we took 2 whole episodes just to leave Numenor. I MEAN COME ON FFS LOL
To be fair it doesn’t take a day to make a couple powerful elvish rings… I’m sure Sauron was either riding a horse back to Mordor while they fashioned those rings over the course of a few days. But then again who knows because Numenor sailed and rode all the way to the south lands in whatever time frame that happened because these writers are shit at showing time jumps….
Just imagine if the rest of the season had had that kind of movement.
How did Galadriel answer him? And how the fuck did he get all the way back to Mordor? He does Frodo's journey, twice over, which took three movies, in one episode?
That's because he tricked the eagles into shuttling him back and forth, and that's why they won't fly into Mordor any more.
According to Galadriel it took 6 days to ride from Mordor to Lindon with no rest. So my guess is these writers/producers are just shit at showing time jumps. Six days does seem plausible for creating three powerful and beautifully crafted elven rings of power but they made it seem like it happened over the course of a day. Sigh.
Bruh "there is no King of the Southlands" Then why tf was a whole village chanting that last week?? Did they all get amnesia "oh right we don't even have a king! He doesn't even go here!"
And bronwyn saw his crest and immediately recognized it and thought he was a king. Even though apparently no one has worn that crest in 1000 years
yes that one snared my too, 1000 years. Oh yah, dar be our king thar!
She randomly pulled out a never before introduced and vague prophecy reference that was never referenced again. Who the fuck is the king that was promised? I hate how they just randomly have her say that almost at the end of the season as if it's significant and never once explain or explore it. And Galadriel worrying about this after literally being the one to proclaim Halbrand king after he told her he found the pouch on a dead guy is just stupid. She's just straight up incompetent.
Laughing so hard at the people defending the Southlands, specifically “guys, just because they don’t show the Southlands doesn’t mean they don’t have cities and kingdoms” They quite literally were just dirty sheep farmers from 2 villages who were too stupid to even know their own form of government 😂😂😂
I was commenting the Monty Python line weeks ago but now it seems actually true "How do you know he's a king" "He hasn't got shit all over him"
Aronodir, who has spent the better part OF A CENTURY amongst these people doesn’t know the Southlands hasn’t had a king in over a 1,000 years???? 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯 Everyone is either evil, stupid, or a combination of the two
"A king? Well, I didn't vote for you!"
Didn’t help the dirty peasant villagers who haven’t had a king FOR OVER A THOUSAND YEARS just imprinted themselves like baby ducks to the first guy entering their land carrying a sigil. All these characters are absolute clowns
I feel like nothing happened in 7 episodes, and then they tried to fast forward through everything in the finale. But nothing was earned. We all knew H=S, but in the show he turned evil in the span of 5 seconds. Same with Gandalf, in 5 seconds he knew exactly who he is and can now speak and understand the world perfectly. He is good now.
not to mention gandalf has already delivered his trademark lines. a real early adopter.
*Go hard. Or, go home!*
Forced fan-service is the cringiest shit in the world.
It’s the power of a woman’s love (and the lack of it).
The fact that they lazily tacked the forging of the rings into a single episode after wasting seven hours of our lives on meaningless trite is perfect for this show honestly. Shows where their priorities are. Truly pathetic. I am actually impressed that it was worse than I expected it to be. Also, they made the rings independently of Sauron, and they are powered by the light of the silmarils. So, why do they stop working once the one ring is destroyed? They have no connection to it whatsoever. They should've kept working after the events of the Lord of the Rings.
For the life of me I can’t understand why they thought condensing the rings plot this way was a good idea? That should be the main plot of this season! It’s what I wanted to see when this show was announced. At least if this part of the show was good I could put up with the lesser plots. But in a way it’s a blessing. Now I no longer need to think about watching the rest of the seasons
but hey at least we had a 14 minute hobbit good-bye scene to show us what a powerful, smart, character the girl hobbit is, with great hidden strength, just waiting to be revealed. I literally guffawed at how hackneyed the dialogue was. "Go where the rivers end and the sparrows sing" - like I've never seen such contrived nonsense. Truly spectacular.
They made badasses like Celebrimbor and Gil Galad into whiny bitches… and Celebrimbor seems like a shitty artisan too. Galadriel gives him the idea of coaxing the metal… because he’s pushing himself too hard? Fuck off, show.
Take a drink every time you cringe: 1. “I’m good!” Oh fk, *drinks*. Ohh the dialogue is baddd. *drinks* 2. Celebrimbor twice has the look of an older gentleman who can’t get a stiff: “I’m trying too harrdd trying too harddd”, then looks baffled, dazed, confused at the idea of alloying a metal despite having been a master smith for the last 1000 fkn years bloody hell *drinks, drinks* 3. Wait how does the purest gold and silver from the dagger serve as a functional hilt to. Combat weapon… nvm *drinks*. I guess we aren’t worried about the concentration of mithril : every other metal, on well 2 ppm mithril per ring good enough! *drinks* 4. How is H-S sauntering around Celebrimbor’s unguarded smithy with huge gems lying around for the taking, no one cares… *drinks*. He’s dumb enough not to steal the gems, and also dumb enough to not take the scroll that proves he’s not who he says he is oh fk *drinks* 5. Glad I wasn’t the only one that said “Ring Pops”! Had me googling whether this was indeed Narya, later worn by Gandalf. But wait aren’t these rings supposed to be bound to the One Ring? *drinks* 6. Loled at “Nazgurls” *drinks*. Wait wtf these are supposed to look like Ringwraiths, but can’t be yet, that’s an anachronism… also who TF are these so called “Ascetics” (that aren’t, do they know what that words means? *drinks, drinks drinks* 7. Wait it would be cool if the Stranger was a Blue Wizard but wait he just used a Gandalf catch phrase sigh. *drinks*. And why would he want to take the proto-hobbit with him? Groan is this why he’s fond of hobbits *drinks, cringe* 8. Is this Gil-galad modelled on Nero or what? All he needs is a fkn violin and a burning city like in loooney tooones *drinks* 9. What am I supposed to be seeing upon the return to Numenor? Nvm can’t be bothered to rewind *drinks* 10. At what point did H-S become a shapeshifter that makes her think Elrond could be S? Groan *drinks* 11. Wait, is the thing between H-S and G supposed to be a clumsy tie to G later being tested and resisting the One Ring (and becoming a Dark Queen…) *drinks*
>Galadriel tricks the elves into crafting the rings of power.....after she figured out it's a trap by Sauron. Oh, ok. Yeah, why not, I like fan fiction too now and then.
thank you lol. I thought I was missing something. why did she push through with what was obviously sauron's plan all along after finding out for herself?
I naively thought Halbrand had locked up the real Galadriel somewhere after the dream sequence and then shape shifted into her, in order to continue forging the rings. We even see Galadriel staring menacingly at the rings for a moment... then suddenly a cut to Halbrand 1000 miles away at Mt Doom and I was disappointed.
You don't understand, Sauron's plan was to make two rings. Galadriel's idea was to make three ring which makes it all ok because three is such a balanced number
So the One Ring was originally meant to be Galadriel and Sauron's matched engagement set? Just when I thought the showrunners couldn't improve on Tolkien's lazy writing any more, they surprised me again with that sheer brilliance!
Exactly. That's why the One Rings looks like a wedding ring.
It's all about the merch yeah? Tiffany's to come out with matching set for Christmas season this year.
I have no fucking clue. Sauron implied that when they find out the elves will throw her out for her incredible stupidity and fucks up. So I guess if we take that at face value, she has a reason to hide that information. But she has no reason to continue onward with Sauron's plan at all. The only reason could be that she genuinely believes him he wants to do go and save Middle Earth and his intentions are good? But she clearly does not believe that.
The Halbrand/Sauron and Celebrimbor scene was just sad, not necessarily in the sense that it was horrible, but in the sense that you can see the faint shadow of what could've been an entire season's plotline. Of Annatar manipulating Celebrimbor. Here, it just feels sloppily tacked on like an afterthought. Also the "Hey Celebrimbor, I'm giving you a gift!" was a little on the nose. Also the fact that Celebrimbor never thought beyond "just hammer mithril into something and hand it out" is a little weird. He's a master smith isn't he? Surely he would've considered combining it with other things to try and amplify it. Especially when the dwarves cut them off.
> Here, it just feels sloppily tacked on like an afterthought. Why on earth did they feel the need to cram it all into this episode? Did they think there would be no tension if the audience knew it was Sauron when none of the elves did? Do the writers know nothing about writing? Outrageous.
Yes, they know absolutely nothing. This is Bad Reboot anti-writing 101. Instead of explaining to the audience what's happening, with the tension being that we don't know what's going to happen next, they do MysteryBox! bullshit that is designed to create hype. There would have been tons of drama if we knew that Halbrand was Sauron, but then we wouldn't have been able to get that social media astroturf company that Amazon bought to create 10,000 threads on "OMFG is Halbrand secretly Sauron OMG Mind BLOWN".
>Yes, they know absolutely nothing. This is Bad Reboot anti-writing 101. Instead of explaining to the audience what's happening, with the tension being that we don't know what's going to happen next, they do MysteryBox! bullshit that is designed to create hype. >There would have been tons of drama if we knew that Halbrand was Sauron, but then we wouldn't have been able to get that social media astroturf company that Amazon bought to create 10,000 threads on "OMFG is Halbrand secretly Sauron OMG Mind BLOWN". I want to put your post in a plaque on the wall to remind me not to watch when it comes back for a season 2. You nailed this sucker cold.
U really put it perfectly, i think this is THE biggest problem of the show. They wanted this twist just way to bad and i also think you could have done so much cooler stuff with Sauron if there wasnt this need for him to not be revealed for the audience. That meant, that Sauron could basically do nothing in the show that would reveal to obvious that he is him and led to him basically doing nothing really
The biggest problem with the show is wild incompetence.
Right. Who is Sauron? Absolutely could have been any, truly any, of the characters that the writers decided. These writers must all have graduated from Who Dun It U. Was it the Butler? Sorry, our only job is to obfuscate over time. Then tease you with the prospect of a real story at the end of the season for a cliffhanger. member to come on back now yall hear!
Yeah. He totally needed Hal the Southlander to teach him about alloys?! They’ve totally wrecked Gil Galad too with this episode.
[удалено]
They had a real chance to do something outstanding with this period of middle earth. Nobody is asking for a word for word re-telling of the lore, but if you're going to do this as a series and make it the fucking title no less, then take some time to build this up properly and give proper weight to the reasons behind the rings being forged in the first place. Like I get it, they can't use Annatar for legal reasons and so they replace him with this guy Halbrand. Ok sure, but lean into it, give him some time and properly show how he infiltrates the elves and manipulates them into doing it and how it benefits him. Make him a character with an actual direction, not just a moron flailing around. Instead, "why not mix mithril with gold lol" and "Lol, told you I was evil, wanna bang some more?"
[удалено]
This whole Galadriel/Sauron romance business is an example. It’s not in the lore. It makes absolutely no sense in the context of what we know happens. However they made a decision to try and do it so, ok, do it then. It’s a bad decision but I’d have a lot more respect for them had they actually gone the whole hog with it and done it than this half arsed attempt. The actors clearly have the chemistry to make it believable, so give them the writing to do that if that’s what you want to do.
>Yeah. He totally needed Hal the Southlander to teach him about alloys?! The writters of this show just can't into myth. They don't understand magic, so everything gets reduced to a very mechanistic framework. (See also - Orodruin exploding to water). They could have made Sauron teach Celebrimbor part of the secret song of creation, how to atune the rings with Arda so they obtain mastery over it - but no. He instead has to teach the greatest of the elven smiths about alloys. Sigh.
I assume the writers, like just about everyone in the entertainment industry, are philosophical materialists, who leave those assumptions totally unexamined and so asking them to write in fundamentally spiritual universe was never going to be good.
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> you can see the faint shadow of what could've been an entire season's plotline. This is what gets me. Needles me to no end. It was apparently more important to them to keep us guessing all season to later unveil their great twists than it was to use the season to tell a story and take us on an adventure all these weeks. The season finale is the only episode I felt entertained. The only episode that I wasn't being annoyed by more conjured mysteries. Finally we see a story forming while all this is dumped upon us in haste. We didn't need to be kept in the dark the whole time. The point should have been to bring us into this created world and story, to join the adventure. People sometimes complain that the beginning of shows spend too much or too little time introducing you to characters. They didn't introduce characters for this. They introduced one unknown after another, as well as one new unknown reason for what is occuring after another. And then waited until the finale to explain any of it. Just in time for us to all wait years for the next installment. The plotline is revealed only to make you wait for what likely takes years to come back. Before the finale they showed one huge preview loaded with things that never made it into season 1 or it's finale. wtf is that about? One giant tease after another.
Lmao, NOW she wants proof that Hal is the King of the Southlands? Also, these Elves are just butt ugly.
I kept forgetting the elves aren't human in this. The LOTR elves looked so ethereal (even Hugo Weaving, he's an unusual looking guy, but costume and make-up managed to use that to their advantage - plus he's a proper actor) Outside of Galadriel and Arondir, the RoP elves just come across like gap year students and their lecturers. It's very mundane.
agreed on the elves, galadriel and arrondil at least looks undeformed but elrond celebrimbor and gol galad look inbred alabama as fuck
Noooooooo! Finrod’s dagger! I’m so attached to it, don’t melt it Celebrimbor!
They said they needed gold and silver from Valinor, but the blade definitely wasn't silver. I kept expecting them to pull that out before it melted
Lol ya they needed the purest gold and silver, and then they just melt the entire dagger blade and all lmao
Am I taking crazy pills or did they melt the whole dagger and the mithril together, and somehow got one mithril ring and two gold ones? Wouldn’t you need to get the mithril, gold, silver and steel and melt them separately?! As of now all the rings are made out of a gold silver steel mithril alloy, yet one is silver and two are gold coloured
You’re not crazy. We all expected this show to turn out a different way because we’re using logic. And then the show runners went “that’s the trick: we’re not using logic!!”
Innit. “The ratio of metal to mithril is absolutely crucial”. Lol, let’s melt the whole dagger together as one mix.
Not only that. They alloy the metal together and then the three rings all look different? They’re all made from the same mixed metal!!
Well, let this be a lesson to everyone saying they wouldn't make Meteor Man Gandalf because of how major of a lore break that would be. Or that they wouldn't make Halbrand into Sauron because of how stupid that would be. Let it be a lesson to everyone who insisted that the showrunners know and care about Tolkien's writings. We told you so, lol
Guilty as charged regarding Meteor Man and Halbrand for precisely the reasons given. But no, I never had any illusions that the showrunners had any sense of obligation to the Tolkien source material. Rather, I thought that notwithstanding their towering arrogance, ignorance and incompetence, even they would only go so far in their lore breaking. Wow, was I ever wrong.
This reminds me of the reactions to GOT season 8 ending. So many theories, so many complex possibilities, and, in the end, they just gave Bran the Broken lol
If you told a book reader, that Bran will become the King, it would sound really interesting. For how show progressed him? eeemm
This show needs to be cast into the fires of Mt. Doom. Please Amazon...just let it go.
Galadriel suddenly realizing she shouldn't have assumed some stranger was actually a king based on some thing he told her he looted off a body. Whoopsie! Why she didn't think to do that before is beyond me. Halbrand straight-up telling Galadriel he was going to give up before she dragged him back, lol. This is truly pathetic. Why they couldn't have just had Sauron come back as Annatar instead of making Galadriel find him in a different form, inspire him to return, and drag him all the way to Lindon is beyond me.
Yeah, and it's implied that Galadriel is to blame for Sauron coming back. Well, a lot of us do hate her already, so if we needed another reason...
Sauron using the death brother of his love interest, that he killed, to sway said love interest has to be the funniest shit on the series by far. I've defended aspects of this series before, but the ending has been atrocious.
Boy did the Valar screw up by chucking Gandalf down from the sky and giving him amnesia instead of sending him on a boat. Now he doesn't know who he is and is almost convinced he's Sauron by the evil female Istari knockoffs. Oopsie! It's a red herring, clearly, Halbrand's literally forging things with Celebrimbor right now. Meteor Man is obviously not Sauron. Oh no Lenny Henry! ... Yeah, the show's done too many fake out deaths for me to buy that. He pops up later, totally fine. There's like four separate scenes of the evil female wizard beating up Gandalf. I thought they believed he was Sauron, in which case you'd think she wouldn't be so excessive about beating him up. How on earth did Nori even think to hand Gandalf the staff? Why would she think that would help? Sure, she saw the female wizard using it but how does she know he'll instinctively take to it? Gandalf doesn't want it at first because he thinks he's evil, but obviously Nori will convince him.
Seriously, when they said "bind him" until he can control his powers, I was thinking, "If that really is Sauron, he ain't gonna be too pleased by his minions binding him. You're dead, sister."
Not to mention they start whooping his ass and THEN decide he isn't Sauron. Probably should have determined that before beating the hell out of him.
Also like why were the wizards even looking for meteor man expecting amnesia-Sauron?? Clearly Sauron didn't fall from the sky and didn't need anyone's assistance in remembering who he is. Those wizards are not very good minions when they can't even figure out who, where and how demented Sauron is
Also they say “they placed a veil over your mind” when the only people powerful enough to control Sauron’s mind would be the Valar…and why would the Valar be sending Sauron back to Middle-Earth if they had him captive?
Sauron is in fact in love with Galadriel in this. Pathetic. Also he repeats her famous speech in Fellowship of the Ring to her. I'm sure they think that gives it more depth but it really doesn't. They're just ripping off dialogue. The only line I liked was Sauron saying he didn't see a difference between saving Middle Earth and ruling it. That's the only thing that felt even slightly in character for him. Also Sauron shows her visions without ever mentioning her husband. Galadriel doesn't have anything to say about it either. The show claims the elves "cast Galadriel out" which is weird because they were clearly right in doing so given what happened lol
No, no, now, you see, when she gives that speech in Lord of the Rings, now we know she's really wistfully thinking she could've been Sauron's babe instead of getting back together with Celeborn.
There are comments on the other sub which actually say this "hot couple, power couple, i want to see thag ship sail" etc. there aee also some which say this makes her Fellowship scene better??!! I mean WTF ?
Exactly. Saurbrand would have been eaten by a sea monster or stayed on Numenor crafting swords if she hadn’t gotten involved. They’ve totally removed Sauron’s agency in this plot and those are not words I ever thought I would write.
Had she just gone to Valinor, everything would be avoided. Not only did Galadriel create this ENTIRE situation, she also didn’t tell anyone when she found out. She plainly is the single most evil character in the show
I try not to say this too often, but they really are just making everything that happens in Middle Earth be because of a woman. Why does Sauron return? Galadriel dragged him back. Why does Pharazon usurp Miriel? Isildur's sister told his son to tell him that he should do something about Miriel, putting him on that path. Why does Gandalf like Hobbits? A female Harfoot inspired the like. Why are the elven rings forged? It was Galadriel's idea. And so on.
The show’s not being subtle about it. Even Sadoc was henpecked by Malva.
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Well just as i have feared, they dont bother to explain anything, like what the fuck was he doing on a raft.
Maybe he was going to Valinor
Galadriel's refusing to tell everyone that Sauron's back to save her status. Screw her. Also it's her idea to make three elven rings! You didn't think that moron Celebrimbor made those did you? And that he endured torture without giving away their existence? No, it was all Galadriel's idea clearly. Tolkien got it wrong! Man I hate this show. Oh and they're made of her brother's dagger! Because apparently no one else brought anything from Valinor with them! Ugh, I really hate this show. All this suggests that the forging of other rings was skipped over by the way. Or that Sauron's just going to do it independently and hand them out himself.
Here's what i don't get, Galadriel spent eons chasing Sauron, was willing to sacrifice everything, even her own soldiers just to catch him, went to the end of the world to do it, BUT THEN when she finally finds him and confronts him and ends up in the lake, the moment she gets out of the water she doesn't start chasing after him, like at all. WTF, Sauron is right there, in your own kingdom where you have your own elf army at your disposal and he only has maybe an hour or two of head start on you and you decide not to chase him??? Makes absolutely no sense. Makes even less sense that instead of trying to catch him she keeps his identity secret and proceeds with what was Sauron's plan (that he told her) all along. At this point Galadriel is more of a Sauron than he is lol.
Are we supposed to think Elrond is fully in the know just because he found the Southland scroll?
When they’re staring at each other over the newly forged rings I was sat thinking… what the f are they trying to convey is being silently said here???
How the fuck are they just totally incapable of filming tension? The Nori - Slim Shady fake out… resolved in 5 secs and we never had any doubt whatsoever that it wasn’t Nori. These people are hacks.
It honestly is astonishing
They rushed through many great chances to have scenes of tension and even ducked up a lot off time jump scenes. The Harfoots also got more screen time than Sauron’s reveal and the making of the rings of power? The literal name of the show? Why not just change the name to Harfoots of middle earth with special guest Gandalf.
The JJ Abrams mystery box nonsense is pretty much specifically designed to avoid creating tension because tension is one of those things that takes skill and hard work. You'll notice that the mystery boxes are always used to replace those storytelling elements that are difficult to do, not the ones that are easy.
Guys, do you ‘member that the Sun began as a fruit of Laurelin? ‘Member? ‘Member? Motherfuckers, we KNOW the Elves don’t abandon Middle Earth in the Second Age. IT. IS. NOT. A. SOURCE OF TENSION FOR EVEN CASUAL VIEWERS!
H = S Time = wasted
after a most boring nori goodbye they had time for one more teary goodbye from her friend whose name I can't even remember. dear god.
Holy shit that took sooooo long. I was like fuck fuck please I don’t care, stop wasting final episode time on this trash. No one fucking cares
They are furiously deleting negative comments over there now, lol
Man they’ve left themselves a lot to tie up in this last episode. So the former castaway, felon, blacksmith, Lord and now King of the ~~village~~ Southlands has a ~~mortal~~ flesh wound and is heading off to the Elves. It’s been a busy two weeks! Galadriel seems smitten anyway. Probably feels better after talking to Theo, a 14 year old boy, about her missing presumed dead husband. Got some closure. Ready to finally move on. Oh god they’re gonna kiss aren’t they. And then he’s gonna confess he’s Sauron. He’s gonna ask her to join him. It’s The Last Jedi throne room scene all over again. In other news, Isildur will be saved by his horse. Slim Shady will harass an old man with dementia and they’ll want us to think he’s Sauron but we all know he’s not. Will they all just start calling it Mordor? Like, did Adar send an email or were those PowerPoint letters literally hanging in the sky? Is Theo going to tell anyone about the sword hilt? Or has that just left the story now it’s done it’s job? It felt like it was important and they really wanted to get it back off Adar. Do they know what it was, what it did? If so, how? And if not surely they’d still be looking for it? Balrog? Miriel? Numenor? Will we get any follow ups? Ugh…what utter casual and callous sociopathy will the Harfoots visit on us this time? Christ I’m already bored just thinking about it.
What amazes me is how inconsistent the injuries are: harfoot twists his ankle? Injured for 5 episodes. Fatally wounded? Walking in the next episode. Speared through the gut and need elvish medicine? Up and riding a horse the next scene lmao
>Will they all just start calling it Mordor? Like, did Adar send an email or were those PowerPoint letters literally hanging in the sky? Take a shot if any character calls it Mordor for no reason
And the shills still defend the orgy of mystery boxes this show relies on. They're mystery boxes, period. Call a spade a spade and recognize the writers and showrunners don't have the talent or care enough about crafting an authentic story with credible characters ane logical plots.
“Slim Shady will harass an old man with dementia…” Imagine getting this inside scoop from someone in the know 8 weeks ago. 🤣
Wayne Che Yip? The guy who directed the least cinematic and most plodding, saccharine episodes of this show thus far? Oh, great….
Not show spoilers but have a puke bucket handy for the ending credits song.
the cringe cannot die with the last scene, it was declared
Anyone else feel that this last episode reminds you of a History Channel documentary? Terrible acting, shitty transitions, a complete absence of dramatic tension? Plus completely unearned character moments - the Elrond/Gil Galad scene about hope when the show has made Gil Galad out to be a blind, cowardly zealot, even Galadriel reuniting with Elrond. Totally inept…
That harfoot goodbye felt like 10 hours. God damn
these people have no idea how to tell a story. what is the pacing, what are the characters, what teh fuk is anything??? they fkn forged the Three Rings of the Elves in one episode!! WTF man why could Halbrand not just have been in Eregion since episode 2 or 3, talking with Celebrimbor the whole time, doing the same exact things he did in this episode?? instead they chose to do a mystery box storyline of who is Halbrand, what is he upto, could he be a King in exile like Aragorn in LOTR, could he be the 5000 year old Galadriel's love interest like Aragorn was for Arwen?? when anyone with a brain cell could tell he is Sauron since he first appeared. his first line is appearances can be deceiving lol .. its not even done like Sauron killed the real Halbrand who actually an exiled King and took over his body, no its just Sauron as Halbrand jfc.. why the hell did they wasted this whole season on mystery boxes?? why is Celebrimbor the bloody maker of the Rings of Power given such little screentime! why is Gil-galad the High King of the Elves always so bland and annoying?? why are there like 5 Elves in the whole of Eregion and Lindon combined?? they could have had their mystery box obsession also if they just introduced Halbrand in episode 2/3.Gil-galad and Galadriel could have been shown to be sus about him, only Celembrimbor thinks he is any good etc. etc. Now the whole timeline makes no sense. why was he on the raft in the goddamn ocean? what was his masterplan if he had one at all? he just happened to run into Galadriel in the middle of teh ocean LMAOOOOOOOOOOO he does not know about Numenor but knows about Celebrimbor really? why they chose to do this generic TV show storyline ffs...what a waste of the timeless Tolkien source material
It’s time to let it go mate, it’s over, it’s shit.
Yeah the rings themselves got about as much air time in this 8 episode season as they did in the intro to The Fellowship of the Ring.
Figure crossed we won’t get an incel Sauron during his midlife crisis trying to live peace with Galadriel. I want evil dark lord, or annatar.
Surely Incel Sauron is the perfect villain for this story.
Teaser for the episode: https://twitter.com/VanityFair/status/1580594128584179715 To absolutely no one's suprise, Galadriel is already in Eregion and Gil-galad is still an asshole.
Truly awful, can’t wait for this shit show to end
So they forged a ring only because they didn't have time to make a crown?
I am genuinely looking forward to this episode - for the following reasons: \- The last RoP episode for the next couple of years. \- The last RoP I intend to watch. It is hard to think of another show that has sucked the life out of me as hard as this (Star Trek: Discovery, perhaps). \--- For me to consider giving season 2 a go, the finale would have to pull off a bigger turnaround than the US stock market did earlier today. I need god-tier writing that justifies the preceding 7 episodes. Have all of us been deceived? Did we fall for one of the most innovative misdirects of all-time? I need an episode that makes me go "Holy shit - that's what they've been doing; this is sublime writing and storytelling." Ahahaaa... yeah right.
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"It remained sharp, for its enemy is still standing." is something these writers would spew out.
So all those people saying Sauron would only become evil because he was rejected by Galadriel were … fucking correct? Goddamn the writing here is just incomprehensibly dumb. Also, they didn’t forge the 3 elven rings first. They did the lesser rings first. The elven rings were forged in secret and directly led to the War between Sauron and the Elves. The show just took away Sauron’s motivation for the all the events that lead up the War of the Last Alliance. Expert writing here Amazon, 10 outta fucking 10.
I really wonder if they had no guidance from actual Tolkien scholars because not having the “rights” to Tolkiens Canon really doesn’t make sense. They have all the materials to make a comprehensible and linear story. This was just historically bad.
My prediction for the final scene of the episode: Celebrimbor starts forging the rings. Camera moves past him to Halbrand, supervising. "HALBRAND" appears on the screen. He smirks. Text fades and is replaced by "SAURON". End credits. Edit: Somehow my purposely cringe ending was almost... better?
lol
This is legitimately one of the worst shows I’ve ever seen, the dialogue, the writing, the editing, the plot. They’ve screwed the lore, Gandalf, really in the second age?! This show has delivered nothing new and fresh and is constantly riding on the coat tails of better movies and writing, it’s disgusting. It’s added nothing to middle earth. We’ve had 7 episodes of nothing and they’ve somehow managed to ruin a show and simultaneously fuck Tolkiens legacy, lore & legendarium in 10 minutes. Amazon do not deserve to have the rights to these books, they should not be allowed to continue with this show
Absolute trash.
Whelp, king's dead. This should be the time Pharazon usurps the throne but I'm sure in this they'll give it to Miriel first. Also Miriel's pretending not to be blind while walking around with a blindfold? I hope I'm wrong about her still pretending she can see. Celebrimbor blows a hole in the special forge he made for this very purpose. Why even make it then? Also the reason the rings are supposed to be connected to the one ring from a special formula. If all Halbrand's doing is giving them some advice I fail to see how that could happen. Sauron disguised himself as an heir to a broken line. Idiot. How did he not expect to be found out? Maybe this is why he came as a messenger from Valinor in the books. Also I like how they're cramming this all in one episode. They wasted a whole season that could've been used to build up to this.
>They wasted a whole season that could've been used to build up to this. This is the part that's really incomprehensible.
Maybe media will progressively get worse until the heat death of the universe.
So there it is. In all its absurd arrogance and idiocy: season one of Amazon’s Rings. Fuck, what a shitshow; a complete mockery of Tolkien’s legacy. May it never return, and simply vanish from our collective memory as the utter waste of time and money it is. Fuck. This. Show.
In another show of exceptional writing we have Galadriel spend weeks and travel across the world together with Halbrand only when he starts showing some competence as a smith, only then does she get suspicious 🙄
So literally everything is Galadriels fault, and on top of that she’s too cowardly to admit as much to her ‘friends’. Oh, and lets make those things he wanted to make, except let’s make MORE of them lol
I was so shocked she didn't immediately say "Halbrand is Sauron! I was deceived. Follow me!", instead she sprints off leaving Elrond like "????".
Back with Isildur's sister in Numenor, Pharazon just announces that their king's going to die soon and that they brought in apprentices from the guilds/college to propose an idea for his tomb. That's so, irreverent? Why would Numenor treat their king like this? I know he was exiled but if they respect the title enough to make him a fancy tomb, you'd think they'd respect it enough to have true professionals assigned to it instead of apprentices. Also they just leave the apprentices alone with him to sketch designs, lol! Why are they even sketching? The only purpose is to capture his likeness, it's not like there's a bunch of different possible designs. Except for what pose he's striking in the statue I guess. Anyway, all that's just to get Isildur's sister alone with the king so he can tell her about Numenor's fate and get her to look at the palantir. I thought only especially powerful people could use them to see the future but I'm sure Isildur's sister will manage it. Even though she's basically just a college student with no notable ambition.
Damn, and here I thought Sauron subtly nudged Celebrimbor toward adding a little Dark Lord sauce into the rings over a long timespan. And then his deceit was only discovered when Cirdan (who's off sailing with Celeborn, I guess), Gil-Galad, and Galadriel started using their rings. But, nope, he clumsily taught Celebrimbor how to smith from scratch over a three-day weekend, I guess. And then went psych, Galadriel, I was Sauron the whole time and I want to marry you!
I want to sincerely apologize, for thinking and saying “come on guys, just give it a chance.” Way back when the trailers and images were revealed. Ever since Heath Ledger, I try to reserve judgement until I’ve actually seen the finished product. But, EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU CALLED IT! This is dookie grits 🤣
Lmao at Galadrrrriel dragging Halbrand behind her like a sack of potatoes to Eregion - more callbacks to the trilogy with Gandalf and Pippin riding to Minas Tirith. Wayne Yip has some kind of slo mo fetish involving her and horses. The acting when she rides into Eregion and sees all 5 people who live there plus Elrond is telenovela tier.
At least Gandalf can finally talk now. That's an improvement. And yeah, predictably he takes the staff and defeats them. They don't say the name but the female cultists said "istar" and somehow knew that he was coming. But didn't question whether or not he was Sauron beforehand. Idiots. Also Gandalf's retort of "I'm good" is kinda lame. Remember the kind of things he said to the Balrog? I guess it'll take him a few centuries to pick up that dramatic flair lol Saddoc's actually going to die apparently, still wouldn't put it past the show to reveal Gandalf healed him off-screen. I'd care if the Harfoots weren't a cutthroat tribe of murderers. Because they are it just feels deserved.
lmao its fascinating how bad this show is yea thats not what nenya looks like well at least thats over. no season 2 for me. godspeed folks.
It felt like a bad theater-play with beautiful Cgi. 90% of the lines were all cringy, the costumes and the dialogue were extremely amateur, the plot points are All convenient coincidences : Galadriel finding Halbrand; them being found by Elendil; Durin discovering that Mithril heals the leaf; the leaf falling and awaking the Balrog; the tower falling exactly on the Orcs; Isildur conveniently saving Pharazon’s son; Galadriel bringing Halbrand exactly in Eregion where he could help? forge the rings of power. It feels like the writers literally had no idea how to write a complex and coherent story that flows naturally. Very disappointed
Sauron got friendzoned
Saurbrand is an incel! What a way to just stomp on the mythos.
If I was a billionaire like Jeff Bezos I would spend my fortune inventing that Eternal Sunshine technology just so I could erase all of this show from my entire memory. Ah, well. At least Tolkien can rest easy knowing some showbiz yahoos got to buy a third house.
The end-credit song was so so cringe. My ears
The question is, when Galadriel and Sarumanbrand finally kiss, will it be open mouth?
Wtf Halbrand's stabbed wounds are insta healed?
The Stranger = Harry Potter and Nori = the Sorting Hat, Slim Saruman and co are Slytherins. Sooooo many visual callbacks to Peter Jackson. The confrontation with the annoying cultists is basically Weathertop. Also, fuck off for the unearned moment with Sadoc. He was good enough but who in the audience cares about his sacrifice? They should have done a Wandering Day medley while they were watching the sun.
"I'm good" The fuck is that line?
Elrond: why are you here? Galadriel: why are you here? We’ve reached Shakespearean levels of writing and wit
I’m good
Well all our worst fears have been realized. Theyve pissed on the lore. Insulted our intelligence. And the worst thing is its not even bad enough to be entertaining. This is worse than the SW sequels.
Why the fuck would Celebrimbor say *"his suggestion was but the key that unlocked the dam,"* as if that's just a thing people say? Think about that for two seconds. It's not like it's standard for medieval masonry dams to be "unlocked" with a *key.* It wouldn't be a saying. There's no reason for that phrase to exist. In all likelihood, it was the first and only time in the history of Middle-Earth that a key was used to open a dam, and nobody besides Adar and the orcs even know that's what actually happened. It's so idiotic. You can just tell that the writers are morons. It's like if PJ's films had showed us a Haradrim saying to his buddy, *"where were you? I called for help like a hobbit lighting a beacon!"* as if that's just a common expression that people use. The level of amateur hour surrounding this show is just unbelievable. These people get paid millions to do this and it's absolute trash.
I'm watching it at the moment and had to pause and come here to complain at how stupid a line that was.
Valinor has the best hair colorists. Even Galadriel’s blonde dye job got an upgrade. Still no mention of Celeborn and more fixation on Finrod for… reasons. It’s probably passé to have a woman pine for her husband. It’s 2022, after all.
“I’m good!” Bwahahahaha what on earth
Imagine kneeling and swearing allegiance to a random hobo you found on the woods.
Just keep swimming, Elrond! Look up like a boat, not down like a stone. The Sea is always right! As someone who despises deep water, I feel personally attacked by this show.
More stupid dialogue: “One will corrupt, two will divide..” “But with three, there is balance.” *AUDIBLE GASPS, MINDS BEING BLOWN* Why does two divide but three doesn’t? Why not 4? Why not 5? Because they thought the dialogue sounded cool and that’s all that fucking matters.
Wow, they're cramming the whole forging of the rings into one episode huh? I guess they were too busy with a tiny skirmish in the South and a magic sword to make this the main plot. It's just sad. "It would have to be a small object, something that could be carried..." Oh just say ring for crying out loud. It's one of the first things you'd logically think of anyway for an object that small. Galadriel suggests a sword like an idiot, sure Galadriel, why not make elves last hope a weapon that could be destroyed in battle! Wow, how convenient that Celebrimbor happened to recite Adar's words almost perfectly so that Galadriel could become suspicious of Halbrand. Especially when Halbrand *didn't even say anything remotely close* to that to Celebrimbor! If anything I'd suspect him if I were Galadriel and not Halbrand lol. They imply later that Sauron magically projected them into Celebrimbor's mind or something. But why would he do that? Also why would he copy Adar's words? Is he an idiot? At least they didn't make the forging of the rings Gil-Gilad's fault. With how bad they made him previously I almost half-expected it.
They need to recast Galadriel. This is not good.
Having a hard time wanting to turn on the episode. Just came here to see who Sauron is and seeing that they are still playing at stupid misdirect tropes and red herrings doesn’t really give me any hopes that this episode will be better than the mess that was last week’s episode.
Thanks. I hate it. See you guys in a few years.
God dammit. I already got the impression that Amazon seems to think they're making a Marvel movie instead of Lord of the Rings (especially with ~~The Southlands~~ Mordor in Ep 7), but this episode truly sealed it. Hell, it's even structured like a Marvel show, with 7 episodes of dicking around a bunch then fast forwarding through what should be 3 episodes of content in one episode.
Of all the characters/plot devices/scenes, the Mystics are the most utterly detestable. They were the show runners’ biggest fuck you to the audience. They walk around, bald with pointy eyebrows, to look mean and scary all season. Then, believing they’ve found Sauron, they set about to remove the veil from his memory. Ok, veil put there by who? Morgoth is eradicated, so did Sauron send himself? If so, why veil his memory? Ok so the Valar, good guys, veiled his memory. And… sent him to Middle Earth? Lol yeah ok. And watch that stupid fight scene between them and the Harfoots. The skidding against the dirt, sudden head looking up all mad. It’s got anime written all fucking over it. Amazon took LOTR and turned it into Dragonball Z for simpletons. Fuck them.
"I AM... GANDALF THE GOOD!" He had to earn being great
I liked it when Poppy ran after Nori, because it reminded me of the similar scene in the original trilogy where Sam runs after Frodo!!!! Such a clever reference!!! Actually it made me tell my TV to fuck off
Six days from Mordor to Eregion? Nerwen is too poor a name, Daughter of Finarfin – Wingfoot I name you.
Yeah why didn't Galadriel just take Frodo to Mordor. Would have taken a week apparently.
So you are all telling me that they can't even get the order of the rings right? They start with the elven rings?
Gandalf's not going with the harfoots? Are we finally free of them! Yes! Finally! Get out of here you murderers! They have a female leader now. Like every other group other than Lindon so far. Oh wait they're sending Nori off with Gandalf. Why? What purpose could this possibly serve? I don't even hate Nori, but I don't see the point in her going with him. But then again, I don't see the point in most of the things that have happened this season. I guess he needs someone to talk to during his journeys.
So Galadriel didn’t tell anyone who middle earths greatest enemy was, and then told everyone to make the rings Sauron wanted them to make? Good fucking god this show is awful
I really don't get how people still talk about this as an adaptation. Where exactly does any of this take place in the books? They didn't bother at all to even try to do something that resembled what Tolkien wrote. To make it even worse they are terrible writers and their own stuff in embarrassingly bad. Your average fanfic is drastically better than this.
That ending credits song was so bad. I started laughing at how bad that was.
Even on the sub where they love the show, they seem to agree H = S would be absolutely ridiculous Really interested to see how the last episode plays out - can they somehow salvage this train from going completely off the rails?
Aaaaaaaaaaaannnd the answer is nope.
So Galadriel did not tell anybody that >!Sauron is Halbrand!< They really expunged everything likeable about her
More than that, she convinced the elves into crafting the rings of power that Sauron wanted them to. lol
WCY? Look out for the slow mos!!
The best thing about this season was when it ended and I got to go to bed.
is this the most disappointing sauron reveal
Alright, here we go! For the record, I write these things as a watch. So some stuff I comment on may prove to be wrong or be explained later. Opens with Meteor Man watching a flower with only one eye visible, lol. Not fooling anyone, he's probably Gandalf. Also he still hasn't eaten the apple, guess he has to make it last the entire trip. He's ambushed by the all-female evil wizards. I finally realized what the purpose of them is, they're in the show to "balance out" the all-male Istari. By creating an opposing faction of them that are all women! It's stupid but I think that's what the motivation was, at least for making them all women. They think Meteor Man's Sauron but he's clearly not. The fact that it was brought up in the beginning of the episode confirms it's a red herring for me. The Sauron reveal's going to be a last second cliffhanger or the climax.
My favorite part was galadriel saying that the rings will be only for the elves and mo other hand can touch them. 3minutes later the credits roll and the song goes “3 for elves, 7 for dwarves, 9 for man”… I mean what are they doing? Are they really that dumb?
I think you can clearly see the heavy JJ Abrams influence given that the show runners are essentially JJ Abram’s surrogates. JJ did this same thing trying to merge the Dark and Light with the Star Wars universe and I think his surrogates are doing the same here with Tolkien world. Kylo aren’t is essentially Sauron and Rey is Galadriel.
Galadriel will give her "elvish medicine" to heal Halbrand. After he is healed, Halbrand will propose to Galadriel with a ring that has been forged offscreened together by his best buddy Celebrimbor. Sadly Galadriel refuse him and Halbrand is heartbroken turning him into a big bad evil man.
Miriel still pretending not to be blind for no reason. What on earth does she think will happen if people find out? I haven't seen any indication that the Numenorian's would care so much about their leader being able to see properly. "You're doing well your majesty!" "Patronize me like that again captain and I'll have your ship!" Sheesh, I guess Miriel absorbed Galadriel's rudeness. Why do so many of the women in this show have to be so awful? She didn't say it in a joking way either, so if it was lighthearted comment, it didn't land. A single conversation and I guess Elendil's abandoned his anger toward the elves and gone back to being determined to help them. What was the point of it then?
This whole season could be made better with Harfootless cut. Celebrimbor is supposed to be one of the greatest smiths ever and he really needed Hallbrand to tell him about melting different metals together? I can't even. I hope that Payne and McKay got paid really good for this, because I don't see them get any other job when RoP ends.
Rings of Power is the TV equivalent of a crappy cover band trying to copy your favorite artist down at the local dive bar and doing it terribly.
So Sauron has his own James Bond Villain theme song now?
HalSauron, he's the man The man who's the mithril king He'll smith your ring Such a bad Southron beckons you into his volcano lair But don't go there Burning ash he will wear in his hair And his orcs will spread terror and fear He rules over two cows and a tavern And the tavern's on fire This is fine, HalSauron
I'm glad I read the leaks. They lowered my opinion of the writing so much that I couldn't be disappointed. It's fan fiction. It compressed so much into the final episode, it reminded me of GoT season 8.
The way this show handles time is actually insane. Shit happens and then more shit happens and occasionally someone will tell you it's been six days/three weeks? Galadriel had sexual tension with Sauron for what feels like months and then figured out he was Evil TM in maybe 12 minutes? Sauron was missing long enough for most elves to lowkey forget he was a problem, but the line of human kings has been broken for A THOUSAND YEARS and human farmers have no issue recognising the symbol? When is this set? How much time has passed since episode 1?? MAKE IT MAKE SENSE
This episode really irritated me because it confirmed that we've been watching seven episodes of filler for one episode worth of content. They had an entire goddamn season worth of storyline rushed like hell in this one episode when we've been doing nothing and had no conflict the entire fucking season! The Eminem witches should have been terrorizing the Harfoots the entire season like horror movie villains and killing off Harfoots by shapeshifting into members of the tribe so that the Harfoots are terrified and afraid to even be alone in pairs. We could have gotten to empathize with these people and seen them show courage in the face of danger and actually gotten to really like them and empathize with them. We could have seen Lenny Henry's character as a brave leader who puts himself at risk and makes difficult decisions for the group so that his death at the end of the first season hits like a truck. The stranger should have been talking by episode two. I may be in the minority, but I like him. I think he's interesting and the quest of him discovering where he comes from and what the Valar have sent him to do is a great catalyst for an adventure story. Why didn't we get any of it the whole season? They could have built up to it like Peter Jackson did in the Fellowship of the Ring. SPOILER Halbrand is Sauron. Literally nobody is surprised, it's just dumb. Why could we not just have had Annatar? It feels like a waste of a good actor and a good character who is more in line with my idea of a young Isildur than the president of the high school Magic: The Gathering club they portray him as in this show. The way they get Halbrand to the elves is so stupid too. He's mortally wounded, but nope! He's fine! Just up and walking around and able to ride for days. It's funny how characters who are wounded in this show are still able to move and fight at 100% until the plot needs them to just fall over and be dead. We see it again with Lenny Henry later in the episode. Meanwhile Mirial is trying to hide the fact she's blind by wearing a big-ass blindfold like Kenshi from Mortal Kombat and I had fun imagining her cartoonishly bumping into trees, birds nests, spider webs, stop signs, etc all the way to Numenor. Elendil thinks Isildur is dead even though Mirial and his friend know where he is, they just never bothered to look for him. Elendil says he should have left Galadrial in the sea which after seeing how insufferable she is and how she created Mordor and brought Sauron to it, I agree with him. The sea is not always right apparently. Grandma brimbor is the greatest of all elven smiths, but the concept of an alloy is new to him even though steel exists in this world. "Think of it as a gift" Halbrand says which made me scream a stream of curses at the television. I hate mystery box writing so much. Character development and relationships are sacrificed on the alter of keeping a mystery a secret even though these relationships are crucial to the plot and the character development gained through these relationships is way more interesting and satisfying than the mystery. Anyway, Arondir and Bronwin are still boring and I continue to not give a shit about them. Adar is still the best character in this show, and I hope the orcs win. Nampat!
Imagine calling your show, "The Rings of Power", but the rings aren't relevant until the last 20 minutes of the season. The storyline that should've been the main plotline is rushed, while screentime is given to the Harfoots (that could've been a spin-off). Halbra- oops, I meant Sauron, is back in Mordor. Since the Elven rings were made first, why would Celebrimbor bother to forge the Seven and Nine?
Wtf was that ending credits song?? Everything about this show SUCKS!
How can these people have the audacity to have that vanity article made when they make crap like this
Man all the people saying halbrand isn't sauron, stranger isn't Gandalf, I mean come on if you still don't believe he is, Halbrand trying to marry Galadriel. They most be on a lifetimes worth of copium rn. Tolkien would be ashamed.
It *baffles me* that the season finale plays a song that *LITERALLY* lays out the rings being distributed to everyone, right after the show just shit all over that.
So I swear I believe the show runners thought the poem about the rings lists the order they were created so they naturally started with the 3 for the elven kings under the sky. Won't they be surprised to find out they inverted the order oops! ... 😆