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That too-good-to-be-true, Aragorn-esque Halbrand who was helping Galadriel in season one?
Yeah, that was Sauron in disguise.
Those settlements in the Southlands youd have trouble placing on a map of later Middle Earth?
Yeah, those get turned into Mordor.
The Stranger who fell to the ground with no sense of his identity among a band of pre-Hobbit figures?
The Rings of Poweris governed by an overwhelming sense of predestination.
Charitably, thats an intended quality of the series.
The show,extrapolated from the appendicesofThe Lord of the Ringsby creatorsPatrick McKay and J.D.
At a thousand-foot distance,The Rings of Powerhas the makings of a gripping adventure epic.
At the level of individual scenes, the show tends to be cautious and programmatic.
Rarely is any character funny.
In a season-two episode,Rings of Powercribs that exact speech over a montage gadget.
But without character detail the Harfoots get some of the shows most generic writing the gesture is empty.
The Rings of Powergets stuck in narrative wide shots.
(Let Sauron put ona nun habitand make a run at seduce the elves most chaotic warrior!)
Instead, so much ofRings of Powers dialogue is functional and expository.
How do these characters imagine themselves in the lineage of Middle Earths myths and legends?
As hard as Im being onThe Rings of Power, the second season does improve as it progresses.
Is there a local community theater scene?
Petty court drama?)
that get swept aside in a rote usurpation plot.
The Rings of Poweris dutiful and familiar, lacking texture and imagination.
