TV Review: Rings Of Power Episode 5
The Harfoots are back! I was so pleased that we started Episode 5 with them since they weren’t in Episode 4. We got a nice look at what their migrations are like along with a song from Poppy Proudfellow, before danger struck. The Stranger saved them from a pack of Middle-earth version wolves but hurts himself in the process, I’m assuming through using too much magic at once and without a staff to direct the energy. Nori is hurt when he works on healing himself with magic, and we’re left with the cliffhanger of whether Nori is now scared of him or not. It seems like he’s still learning the limits and abilities of his magic use and is only hurting others accidentally, so I’m not too worried about him becoming evil; if he is a Wizard, he will end up being good and a permanent friend to the Harfoots (unless he’s Saruman, in which case he’ll be good only initially).
What’s more worrying is the people tracking down The Stranger- they certainly don’t look friendly. They are called The Dweller, The Nomad, and The Ascetic; the leader seems to be The Dweller played by Bridie Sisson. The trio is from Rhûn in the Eastlands, which doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re evil but certainly hints that they might be since the Easterlings eventually join Sauron. So it could be that the trio are magic users tracking The Stranger under Sauron’s orders. I imagine it will take some time to track the Harfoots as they continue moving along, so we probably won’t see any payoff in the next episode. I’m interested in seeing how the Brandyfoots are going to set up their cart when they reach their new dwelling place at the end of the migration, and how they will incorporate The Stranger- will he also get a shelter or have to build his own?
My next favorite segment of this episode was Prince Durin tricking Gil-galad into giving him a pretty table for his wife by making Gil-galad think it was a stone reserved for tombs. I love the mischievous side of dwarves so I hope we continue to see more pranks like that to come. The Elven-Dwarfish exchange dips its toes into some lore as Gil-galad insists to Elrond that mithril comes from a Silmaril and so the Elves need the mithril that the dwarves have mined in order to keep the light of the Eldar from fading. (Eldar means “people of the stars” and refers to Elves who went back to Valinor/The Undying Lands after Morgoth was defeated. So in this case, I think it’s meant to refer to the Elves’ immortal souls.) The Silmarils were three gems made by an Elf named Fëanor using essence from the Two Trees of Valinor- which were the trees that Morgoth destroyed, thus beginning his war with the Elves. So the Silmarils were needed to restore the Two Trees since they were the only things that still contained that essence, but Fëanor refused to give them up and they stayed in Middle-earth.
In the lore, one Silmaril was placed in the sky as a star, one was thrown into a fiery pit, and one was thrown into the sea, so I’m not sure if this show is deliberately altering some of the history with this story of the Silmaril in a tree or if Gil-galad is fabricating the story to influence Elrond. We haven’t had much time to get to know Gil-galad, so even though he’s a king and an Elf and thus seemingly trustworthy, we don’t actually know if we can trust his intentions yet. There’s nothing in the lore about mithril coming from a Silmaril, but that could be an invention for the show. For now, I’m hoping that Elrond stays loyal to Durin and doesn’t share any more with Gil-galad than he has to. I think at the very least, nothing will happen to come between their friendship until Celebrimbor’s new forge is complete, since that is central to the show and its title. I hope we get to see the completed forge by the end of the season.
Our search for Sauron continues as we essentially get confirmation that Adar is not Sauron; he didn’t explicitly deny it but he looked very angry when Waldreg called him Sauron. Since he was that angry at being mistaken for Sauron, it makes me think that maybe he doesn’t even work for Sauron at all; in fact, perhaps he is also fighting Sauron but for the sake of his own power rather than the defeat of evil. It could be that he is looking for a weapon strong enough to face off against Sauron. If he eventually does and is defeated by Sauron, perhaps Sauron takes Adar’s Orc army and adds it to his own, thus hastening his rise to power. If Adar is working for Sauron, he could still have the same end goal of overthrowing Sauron in mind, but under the guise of being a good lieutenant.
Perhaps he siphoned off some Orcs from Sauron by treating them better, thus why they call him “father.” In any case, it doesn’t seem like Bronwyn’s people have any real chance of fighting off Adar, especially since a large group defected to join Adar. The only way that her people could all make it out alive is if some friendly force comes in to save them, which there isn’t much time for. But I also don’t think that the show is going to kill off Bronwyn and Arondir so quickly, if at all. Even if the majority of the people are killed, I’m guessing that at least Bronwyn, Theo, and Arondir will escape and spread the news of Adar’s quest to others. That will certainly be pertinent information for Galadriel, so it would be really interesting to see Bronwyn’s group combine paths with Galadriel and the Númenóreans.
Speaking of the Númenóreans, they’ve been busy preparing ships to go to Middle-earth. Galadriel has a fun sequence helping Elendil train some soldiers, teaching them some sword-fighting techniques that they’re going to need against a potential Orc army down the line. And when it’s finally time to set sail, Galadriel gets some pretty sweet armor that the soldiers admire as much as we do, so she certainly got to shine in this episode. Her fighting sequence in Episode 1 was much more impressive though, so I certainly hope that we get to see a lot more fighting from her. Halbrand also got a glow-up with some new armor and a bath since his hair finally looks clean after several days/weeks on this island. He not only looks more worthy of his ancestral lineage now, but seems to be slowly taking on that mantel as he accepts Galadriel’s request for him to return to Middle-earth and his people. But it would be wise for both the audience and Galadriel to remain wary of Halbrand since he himself points out that we don’t know why and how he ended up stranded in the ocean in the first place.
I saw a theory online that he could be a disguised Sauron looking to collect information from various places and people, and while I think that’s a bit of a stretch, we really can’t rule anything out at this point. The lore says that Sauron disguised himself as an Elf at one point, which is how he got production of the Rings of Power started, but not about disguising himself as a Man. It’s hard to tell how close the show is going to stick to the lore since they’re keeping broad strokes but vastly condensing the timeline and possibly changing some details like where the Silmarils ended up. Sauron’s reveal seems like it would be a great season closer, but not necessarily for Season 1- maybe not until the end of Season 2. Any later than that and the audience would probably start to get annoyed at the delay. With only three episodes left of this season, we’ll certainly find out soon!
