Rings of Power Episode 7: Amazon Buys Swampland In Mirkwood
Oh, this is super promising they’ve started this week’s episode by ripping off Lost.
The show opens with a close-up of Galadriel opening one eye that is covered in volcanic ash, the camera pulls back as she struggles to her feet. Did you know that Middle Earth volcanic ash is made entirely of Cheeto dust? Because that is what everything on screen looks like.
Freaking. Cheeto. Dust.
Considering that she was bodychecked with a Pyroclastic flow last week, she’s a lot more active than dead, which is what she should be. Unless they are really ripping off Lost and she actually is dead, but I’m pretty sure I’m not that lucky.
A horse calmly gallops by Galadriel with CG fire all over its back. I’ve heard a horse scream before, there is nothing like it and that isn’t it, the horse is happily whinnying. Also, the horse is way too calm for being on fire.
Galadriel is lost in the volcanic ash. And lost in more than one sense of the word, she is devastated by her defeat and the fact that she now has no one she can shrewishly lecture.
Sadly, for young Theo, Galadriel finds him. Once again, she preaches about the importance of virtues that she not only does not possess but has displayed utter contempt for. She has repeatedly proven she cares nothing for the lives of those under her command. It’s her own obsessions that count. By any reasonable measure, all of her actions have been evil.
Theo can’t find his Mommy. I think we are supposed to be afraid she was killed, which is ludicrous because one; we don’t care about her, and two; you know damn good and well a strong, independent woman isn’t going to be killed off in this show. A minor mystery box in this series is: Who is Theo’s father? Big freaking hint: They have never once shown Theo’s ears in this whole series.
They are looking for survivors and I predict with total conviction that the only characters that were killed in this cataclysmic event were minor, male, and Caucasian.
Queen Míriel is calling out various names too. She finds Isildur crying for help as he tries to get Valendil out from under some burning timbers. He is too weak and mannish to lift heavy things but Míriel hulks out and lifts the burning timbers, bellowing mightily. We all absolutely knew Valendil could be rescued by a woman of color, but it would have been physically impossible for a white man to rescue any black man on Woke Middle Earth. However, no power on Middle Earth could save Isildur’s other friend.
#TheDarkHeraldWasRight
Isidor’s nearly nameless blonde friend was killed. You knew that was coming, but the showrunners are under the hilarious impression that people are going to feel remotely sorry for a character who was given absolutely no character. There is no audience engagement because he was just Randoidor. I would actually have felt something if Valendil died but not the other kid. He did nothing and the audience feels nothing.
I suppose it’s the only source of tension in this show, when will the white characters who aren’t in the Tolkien stories die?
Team Slay Queen rushes into a burning building to rescue people inside and it collapses.
We’re supposed to think that Isildur has been crushed by burning timbers. Again, there is no tension here because the only one with thicker plot armor than Isildur is Galadriel herself. Of all the people they could have picked to stick in a mystery box, the writers picked Isildur. Even the casuals know he was alive at the start of Fellowship.
Ah, we do have a bit of drama. The Queen appears to have been blinded. When the building collapsed, there is a shot of her being blown out of the building like a wall of claymore mines went off in her face when it was just a burning roof collapsing. I’m kind of in a quandary here. Her blindness isn’t in the Legendarium but none of these events are either, so I have no way to know if it’s permanent or not.
The Númenorean survivors set off for their coastal camp. Elendil seems to have seen the light. The spell has been broken. He clearly now views Karen-Galadriel as nothing but trouble and trouble that got his only(?)* son killed. “I should have left her in the Sea where I found her!” What is your people’s favorite mantra? Oh, yes. The Sea is Always Right. The Sea clearly wanted her to drown and Not-Sauron to drown. The sea was right. The sea called it.
Galadriel and Theo are on their own so they talk for a bit. Galadriel’s husband finally gets a mention.
Oh. What. The. Fuck?
Celeborn is dead. Okay, okay, yeah I know, even the current managers of the Tolkien estate would never sign off on that. So, you already know that Celeborn is undoubtedly alive and in a dungeon somewhere.
And black.
I’ll put money on that last part.
ARRRGGHHH!!!
Yes, The Filthy Gully Dwarves have made their appearance. Their annual migration and stripping of the land bare wherever they go has reached their summer habitat. Apparently, the only thing they eat here is apples. At least I don’t have to listen to any more damn songs about snailing.
Oops, the apple trees are all dead. The small section of immaculately groomed wild apple trees got hit by a lava rock that flew all the way from the volcano. The festering vial homunculi are doomed to all starve now. Yes! YES! YES!!!
No.
Hobo-Gandolf is hugging one of the burned apple trees looking sad. Surprisingly, the Filthy Gully Dwarves aren’t blaming him for a bit of stray lava that landed like a ballistic missile all the way from proto-Mordor. They would have in the other episodes.
They want him to fix the trees. He’s trying. Nori’s sister runs up to him while he’s magicking and tree. A limb breaks off nearly hitting her. Wait a second. Nori has a sister? We’ve never seen her before in any of the other six episodes but hey, she’s here now. These diseased roaches breed that fast huh?
Finally, Hobo-Gandalf gets the boot from the caravan because a branch fell.
Years from now will the showrunners admit that this was an old star trek script they just reworked?
Time to visit the real Dwarves, the only thing of interest to the showrunners.
Elrond is begging Durin III to mine the Mithril. The king is adamant, the answer is, no.
Why? The Dwarf-lords all agree the Elves are offering a pretty sweet deal.
Does Durin III know there is a Balrog down there? I mean if he does, then yeah, sucks to be an Elf but Dwarves have got their own problems. However, if he doesn’t then why is he not pursuing an admittedly high-risk but high-reward venture with the Elves? The Dwarves may not be fond of the Elves, but they are a known commodity and so for that matter are the Orcs, who are now going to be doing very well for themselves.
And there actually is kind of an answer even if it takes them fifteen minutes to say it. Mithril is too dangerous to mine. We live down here, In The Mine and it could bring the whole mountain down on top of us.
Another reviewer pointed out that there is an additional reason for Durin III’s reluctance. If the Elves have (I can’t believe I’m writing this) a finite amount of light given to them by the Valar, then helping them cheat this Doom (in the old sense of the word) would be helping them defy the will of the Ilúvatar. And that never goes well. Durin III actually does have good motivation for his actions even if it takes for-ev-er to articulate them.
Like, I said, the Dwarves are the only thing the writers are interested in.
After giving Hobo-Gandalf an apple and setting him free to wander away like he’s a duck in a 1950s Disney movie. Noori embraces her heritage as a Filthy Gully Dwarf and says she should never have helped him. Look if her little sister had been accidentally killed, or even hurt then fine. Decent character development. But she has no reason at all to feel that helping her pet wizard was wrong in any way shape or form. Her entire family would have died without him. REPEATEDLY. There. Is. No. Motivation. Is there a new writer? Did he not watch any of the other episodes? Great Manwë, I envy him.
The Númenoreans have packed up and are ready to head home. Galadriel finally runs into them. After a tension builder that no one could believe in, Theo finds his mother alive. He hugs her and then Elfagorn, who we haven’t seen in this episode because they were busy filming last week’s episode. Galadriel says goodbye to the Queen finally more or less apologizing for leading her kingdom to ruin.
Míriel vows she will return. Elendil looks Big Mad about that having finally embraced isolationism. Lloyd Owen is a good actor and is earning his paycheck. He’s only ever played forgettable Handsome Man roles for thirty years, but he has always had the chops to do more. A pity he’s doing it in this thing.
Nori and company are all happy because Hobo-Gandalf fixed the apple trees for them, and they can continue ravaging the land like the plague of locusts the Filthy Gully Dwarves are. Nori runs off looking for her lost pet.
And runs into the Weirdos in White (AKA the Maier, AKA the Wizards) who are also tracking Hobo-Gandalf. Nori runs into them and tries to send them on a wild goose chase. Saruman with tits (you know that’s who it is), burns the Filthy Gully Dwarves wagons for that one. At least this show is giving me some solid unintentional comedy.
Skipping ahead a little bit the Filthy Gully Dwarves break with long-lasting tradition and decide to help someone. They set off to find Hobo-Gandalf to warn him.
Nori’s Dad says, “There’s one thing Harfoots do better than any other creature on Middle Earth.” Okay, I’m actually showing an interest. What do these festering slime eel pustules do better than anything else? “Stay true to each other.” I woke up my whole household laughing at that one. These showrunners aren’t just in desperate need of a morality coach, they need a memory coach as well because I can’t remember a single instance of the Filthy Gully Dwarves hanging together when times got tough. Promising to get drunk and remember an amusing way we left you to die is not staying true to each other.
But they set off to find Noori’s lost pet, and these are the most pathetic prosthetic feet I’ve ever seen. The actors clearly can’t walk in them. They all have to waddle with their toes pointed to the side. Terrible design work but it’s what I’ve come to expect from this show.
I know I say this every week but it deserves to be said every week: Every. Aspect. Of. This Show. Is. Cheap.
Chainmail is printed on fabric. The breastplates look like they’ve been 3d printed. The helmets look like dressed-up football helmets. That would be okay for background extras, but these things are being seen in closeups on the hero characters. I am not even kidding a little bit when I say that the armor in freaking Deathstalker looked better than this.
This show is an utter disaster, and as I predicted, it’s getting a second season. Despite the fact that this thing is a major embarrassment to Amazon.
Anyway, this is the last appearance of the Filthy Gully Dwarves in this episode.
Look I’m cool with Hobbits, okay? I have been cool with them for (sigh) close to five decades.
Their origin in the legendarium is a little sketchy. Tolkien made it deliberately so. They may or may not have been around during the First Age. Hobbit history doesn’t go back that far, they refer to their own pre-history as the Wandering Days. They seem to be closely related to Men, given that they are mortal but live slightly longer than non-Númenoreans. You get the idea that Ilúvatar was doing a little doodling when he was working on Men and the Hobbits are the result of a design, he didn’t go with but didn’t want to throw away either. They stopped wandering around at the beginning of the Third Age and settled in an area that would become known as The Shire. So, I suppose the timing is about right for them to stop wandering given all the events this show wants to rush through.
The Númenoreans have set sail and the Elves are watching from the cliffside.
Elfagorn: Do you think she will keep her promise?
Galadriel: No. (pause) I’m certain of it.
Really?
Do you think she will have the option? Let’s break that one down, shall we? Míriel was already an unpopular queen before she launched a foreign war on the basis of nothing more than the say-so of an Elf and a tree’s leaves blowing around. All to put a rando usurper (found on a raft), on a throne that hasn’t existed in at least a century. Granted an easy win against the Orcs, plus installing a client king would have propped up her approval ratings considerably. Chancellor Ar-Pharazôn was probably nodding his head in sagacious sanction of this scheme. However, losing at least half her expeditionary force and the entirety of the Southlands for the remainder of the Second and Third Ages is not going to go over well back home in Númenor. This says nothing of giving the Orcs a safe homeland. And she is now swearing to double down after this failed offensive? The show’s version of Ar-Pharazôn has been a loyal chancellor but a revolt against a queen who has been figuratively and is now literally blind is pretty much assured. His only question at this point is, do I lead it? The answer should be “yes,” but they’ve gotten so much wrong with this show I honestly don’t have a clue.
Prince Durin is feeling a little glum because Dad stripped him of his title for his completely illegal mining operation. Dissa is trying to comfort him.
Terrific. Durin IV and his wife Dissa were two of the very, very few characters that I liked. Now, they’re talking about how his father is a fool, he is going to be king no matter what and she’ll be queen and they will mine the Mithril and rule all Dwarf kind together. They’ve decided to MacBeth it up big time. This is getting Prince Durin hot and I really hope this isn’t what they needed the Intimacy Coordinator for.
Good, it isn’t.
Final shot. Adar and Scruffigon are walking around in the Cheeto dust. Scruffigon seems immensely pleased. Sure, his country is now a blasted, devastated wasteland but he is now the second most important man in it.
It says so much about these showrunners that they made the Orcs sympathetic characters. JRR Tolkien was writing the most straight-up stories of good versus evil that he could imagine. The Orcs were always meant to be completely evil. That was Tolkien’s authorial intent. And Payne and MacKay immediately started making stories about oppressed races because their intellectual training and moral corruption will permit them to do nothing else. Every single action of Galadriel in this series has been that of a villain. Whereas Adar, lord, and leader of the Orcs while kind of evil in his own right has the more sympathetic objective of caring for his damaged and twisted progeny. This guy still has every reason to believe that if he ever dies, he will face and receive his doom from Mandos. Adar appears to be willing to accept that judgment for his actions. You know that Karen-Galadriel would be shocked to learn that she had earned damnation.
Scruffigon is sucking up by snarling, “Hail Adar! Lord of the Southlands!” The Orcs take up the cry. But Adar shushes them by saying, “that is the name of a place that no longer exists.”
Scruffigon: What shall we call this land now, Lord?
A location name appears on screen. The Southlands. Then it starts to burn away, and I force myself to relax completely because I know what has to be coming and the cringe will be so powerful, I will be in danger of tearing my **butthole if I give into it.
The new title card predictably reads: Mordor. Any number of ways to do that and they instinctively used the worst one.
How creatively bankrupt do you have to be to give an origin story to a geographic feature?
One more episode to go.
Okay, I’m done here.
*Who is going to build Minas Arnor? You know, the place named for Elendil’s second son?
**No, it didn’t. Thanks for your concern.
