As I sat down to write this review of the second season of “Rings of Power,” I recalled some memorable moments. A swarm of butterflies uniting to form a human form. A choir of singers communicating with the earth in a beautiful harmony. A horde of spiders closing in on a helpless prisoner, and their stench is so bad you can almost smell it.
What am I? Not possible Have you thought about any characters you particularly care about, or any emotions you felt as they traversed Middle-earth? That’s the case with this Amazon drama, the billion-dollar, highly publicized prequel to “The Lord of the Rings.” Two years ago, the first season was initially met with rave reviews from critics, who rightly praised the show’s visual world-building while noting that the actual story was still not up to par. With audiences, however, “The Rings of Power” landed with a bang that would reverberate throughout the dwarven settlement of Khazad-dûm. According to The Hollywood Reporter, only 37 percent of domestic viewers who started the eight-episode series watched it through to the end. That’s hardly ideal for a record-breaking release, let alone the most popular production in streaming service history.
Season 2 offers no reason to believe that this viewership trend will reverse. As for the creative quality of the season, the grace period for this lavish Tolkien homage has run its course—though it’s debatable whether a project that was given so many resources was worth it in the first place. (To be fair, reports that Jeff Bezos had demanded Amazon’s answer to “Game of Thrones” tarnished perceptions of “The Rings of Power” long before it premiered, ensuring that it would be compared to more than just Peter Jackson’s trilogy.) With the reveal of a shape-shifting Sauron and a forged first set of ornaments, “The Rings of Power” finally has the faintest hint of narrative momentum. But the second part of this show, as flat and slick as a kitchen backsplash, suffers from the same problems as the first, without much confidence that those problems will ever go away.
Set during the Second Age of Middle-earth, between the mythical history of the Silmarillion and the conflicts of The Lord of the Rings, The Rings of Power faces the same challenge as many prequels. Even science fiction novices know that the elf Galadriel (Morfydd Clarke) will fail to prevent Sauron (Charlie Vickers) from creating the One Ring and establishing a power base in Mordor, and that when the human warrior Isildur (Maxim Baldry) cuts the Ring from Sauron’s hand, he kills the evil spirit’s physical form but not his powerful influence. There’s a fervent, if limited, group of fans eager to see Isildur’s birthplace of Númenor, an advanced but near-fallen human city, or the nomadic hobbits of the pre-Shire, then known as the Harfoots. For others, there’s a need to generate suspense or interest regardless of the already-known outcome.
Other successful previous films, like Better Call Saul and Pete’s Dragon, have doubled down on the sense of tragedy, using this shared knowledge to underscore the absurdity and self-defeating nature of their characters’ actions. But Rings of Power wants to be lighter and more wholesome than these films, which are so clearly shot. no That’s rightfully the case for the show’s executive producers Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne, as well as their corporate sponsors; it’s also in keeping with the source material, which began as a children’s novel with “The Hobbit.” Avoiding these themes still places more weight on character development and other means of holding our attention—and that’s where “Rings of Power” continues to fall short.
The most compelling aspect of season two is actually its darkest. Having shed his disguise as Halbrand, the human king of the Southlands and ally of Galadriel, Sauron now assumes the identity of Anatar, the supposed emissary of the Valar. In this guise, Sauron exploits the arrogance and naivety of the elf-crafter Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) to manipulate his goal of forging the Rings. The trilogy worked last season, saving the elves from decay and granting their new wearers clairvoyant powers. Sauron uses this victory to convince Celebrimbor to undertake a more dangerous endeavor: forging the Rings for dwarves and even men, with Sauron present to corrupt the process and thus its ultimate outcome. The One Ring remains a gleam in Sauron’s fiery, all-seeing eye, but we’re on the right track to its origin.
This story is about the malignant corruption that sows the seeds of distrust and greed among the good guys. Edwards plays Celebrimbor’s growing paranoia with poignant self-doubt, and in Khazad-dûm, Prince Durin (Owen Arthur) and his wife Disa (Sophia Nomvete) struggle with the Ring’s negative influence on the greedy and adventurous King (Peter Mullan). The continuing decline of Middle-earth, with the dwarves and elves losing land to the orcs and humans, is all the more poignant because of how effectively the Rings of Power illustrate the magnitude of what is at stake.
But “Rings of Power” sets this resonant conflict in the middle of a thicket of lore that remains impenetrable to outsiders, a group that includes anyone who doesn’t have the time or inclination to delve into Tolkien’s deep cuts. An earlier iteration of Sauron, played by “Slow Horses” star Jack Lowden in a surprise appearance, is pitted against an orcish rebellion led by Adar (Joseph Maul), who engineered the eruption of Mount Doom and the founding of Mordor in a first-season episode. I can’t tell you why these two sides are at odds, nor why Sauron chose not to reveal himself when he ventures into Mordor in the premiere before rerouting to Celebrimbor’s base.
I also couldn’t make sense of the various political factions vying for control of Numenor, which only appear in one episode throughout the first half of the season, but seem to have significance that I couldn’t quite make out. (There’s some religious motivation at play, and some anti-elven bias, but the origins and reasons for either camp remain a mystery.) I couldn’t even make out where There were various subplots unfolding in relation to each other, and I often found myself longing for a Game of Thrones-style map to unlock each episode.
Instead of an exciting sense of discovery, Rings of Power instead instills a sense of confusion, as if you’ve sat through a college lecture without reading the material. This confusion is probably a matter of user error, though I’m not alone. When I told a family member I was reviewing this season, they expressed surprise that they hadn’t heard of a show set in Middle-earth. We quickly realized that they had watched the entire first season and forgotten not only the details, but its very existence.
The difficulty Rings of Power has in communicating stakes or basic mechanics is directly related to the difficulty of creating fictional creatures with distinct personality and memorable characteristics. Sauron is one of the most iconic villains in pop culture, but in this novel, he’s no more interesting as a deadpan sleeper agent than he was as a looming offscreen figure during the first season. The heroes stick more closely to archetypes created by Tolkien (the naive young hobbit on a quest with a wizard) or the collective consciousness (the strong female character, a trait that this young Galadriel fits perfectly). Season 2 features more forced, unexpected romances, and more deadpan dialogue—“It’s strange how what’s left behind can be the heaviest burden to carry”—that turns the viewer off. I’m still more aware that I’m supposed to find the villains charming than I am fascinated by their actions. Nomvete's character Dessa comes close to fulfilling her intended role as a fun-loving entertainer, but the rest of the show remains a dutiful tribute devoid of spark or surprise.
Amazon preceded the premiere of “Rings of Power” with one of the most intrusive and overtly invasive marketing campaigns in living memory. That strategy has since been scaled back; when my laundry detergent arrived the other day, the packaging was missing a branded ad for Prime’s most glamorous intellectual property. Perhaps the show’s platform is beginning to acknowledge the show’s limited appeal. If you’re the kind of person who yearns to meet Tom Bombadil (Rory Kinnear), the quirky country soul plucked from Jackson’s films, “Rings of Power” was made for you. If you’re not, it’s not—and it’s not even trying to convince you otherwise.
The first three episodes of “Rings of Power” are set to premiere on Amazon Prime Video on August 29, with the remaining episodes airing weekly on Thursdays.
