RINGS OF POWER Season 2 Breakdown! FULL SEASON Details You Missed!

welcome back to new rock stars I'm Eric Voss and this is a complete breakdown of The Lord of the Rings the rings of power season 2 from the stunning visuals to the spellbinding music by bar mccre this season was an absolute Feast for anyone who loves tolking writing and World building and it is my onon Earth to complete this journey with you here at the end of things I covered the first half of the season in a separate video like a month ago and just to keep my full season 2 analysis in one place for

you I put all my breakdowns for episodes 1 2 3 and four in the first half of this video even you know my of the time speculation and mistakes cuz they're so cute now and I picked up right where I left off with episodes 5 six seven and eight right around the halfway mark of this video so if you already watched the stuff from the first tab feel free to skip directly to the chapter for episode 5 if this is the first rings of power season 2 new rockstars video you've tapped on welcome friend and

enter because you're going to wander and wander through this lovely season with me okay let's start with season 2 episode one elv Kings under sky this phrase of course comes from the first line of tolken epigraph to the Lord of the Rings the ring verse three rings for the Elven Kings under the sky seven for the dwarf Lords in their Halls of stone nine for Mortal men doomed to die one for the dark lord on his dark throne in the land of Mordor where the Shadows lie one ring to rule them all one ring to

find them one ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them in the land of Mordor where the Shadows lie and it's those three rings this episode focuses on naria the ring of fire Nya the Ring of adamant also known as The Ring of water and Bila the Ring of air the elves are described as under Sky because they unlike dwarves or men are considered the closest to the Valar and eru alvatar and with that status comes a Folly a blindness to the light tolken uses that phrase where the Shadows lie as a

double meaning not just where Shadows lie upon the ground or other surfaces but where the personified shadow in this case Sauron lies and deceives we open on the three-pointed iron crown of Sauron Peter Jackson's team designed sauron's crown on a John how painting of morgoth and the spider killing the trees the three points were actually in this case designed to hold the silmer rils in the text the crown was melted down but in Peter Jackson's films and in this universe Sauron took morgoth's Crown to make it his own and I just think it's interesting that

this episode's title evokes The Elven jewels on the rings of naria nya and Vila but its opening image is of the three-pointed crown that evokes the sheets of the Elven jewels in the war from the previous age you may remember that Sam references morgoth's iron Crown in The Two Towers text in one of the passages that Fran Walsh and Philip aboyans adapted for Sam's Amazing monologue in The Two Towers film in which Sam recognizes their own role as part of that same great tale that never ends and these elves by letting themselves become so dazzled

by the three new jewels in the light of a tree that reminds them of Tarion the Elven Kings under Sky fail to see that they are in that same First Age conflict as well we are now in the forward W centuries earlier at the dawn of the second age this flashback opens in the same place where gadriel finds siron Mark in the season 1 Premiere creating a kind of parallelism between the characters as gadriel will one day be abandoned by her group group in the same spot where Sauron now in his original name as myON

suffers his Julius Caesar betrayal myON says always after a defeat the shadow takes another shape and grows again ah this is actually a quote from Gandalf's description of sauron's return to Frodo in the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring always after a defeat and a respite the shadow takes another shape and grows again I wish it need not have happened in my time said Frodo so do I said Gandalf and so do all who live to see such times but it is not for them to decide all we have to decide is what to do

with the time that is given to us it's hard for me to read from these texts without getting a little emotional Jack Lowden plays Myron in his flashback as logically Adar needs to have not recognized him with Charlie vicker's appearance in the present day of the show Adar was also recast from Joseph Maul in season 1 is now played by Samuel hazeldine Myron says that he sees a new power not of the flesh but over flesh power of the Unseen World ah yes the Unseen World of course refering into the alternate plane of existence that

those who wear the one ring and other Rings kind of have access to seeing it's believed Sauron Retreats into the Unseen World when he's defeated at the end of the second age that we saw in the fellowship prologue but you may remember that Caleb ribor used this same phrasing back in season 1 we are on the cusp of crafting a new kind of power not of strength but of spirit not of the flesh but over flesh and at the time gadriel asked kellmore where he heard those words and he was like du du and at

the time we're like wait did saon get to Kell rimbor at some point in the past but this flashback proves that that did not happen saon never met cell rimor before the second age but they seem to be corrupted by the same Shadow really a question posed by the series is whether evil in the universe is sourced to beings like morgoth and siron themselves or if these characters are just giving in to external temptations that weigh like gravity upon All Souls myON preaches that his aim at least for now is to heal Middle Earth by

bringing its peoples together to rule them all as one yes he shouts rule them all to tease his ultimate desire to forge one ring to rule them all but it's interesting to hear him talk about at least publicly his desire to heal because that is the way tolken described this phase of sauron's transition After morgoth's Fall Adar holds the iron Crown over Myron's head and he looks straight up through the ring with almost exact same framing as Gollum looking up through the ring at the climax of Return of the King when he finally got it

in his fingers again but Adar flips the crown and stabs him with it leading to a swarm of Orcs I like how sa/ meyon manages to stab one on a sword tip that's sticking out through his chest and then he pulls that sword out of his back to fight the others like it's important to see how he was morg Go's Lieutenant he is a badass but upon his death he emits a blast that freezes over the forward W similar to the 360° blast that he released when iser defeats him in the fellowship prologue the black

blood oozes down into the cavern and we get this great transition where we Fade to Black and then return to show the stalagmites of the cavern have now risen significantly which shows the passing centuries and sauron's coming rise it's not unlike the sequence in Return of the King showing smeagles transition into Gollum over hundreds of years the black goo consumes a rat and then a centipede and gains the ability to Slither and then he slips over a ledge I just love this kind of drunken breath that he lets out but it latches onto a cart

and I like how you can see it crawl up the back and then block out all the light on the other side of the carriage suggesting it widened and then fully enveloped this woman and we see her wine pouch dripping and there is an interesting Motif across these first few episodes of wine like Adar describes how Sauron offered him wine when he was chained to the top of a mountain in the first agage he offered me wine red as a Blood Moon he offered me wine on that dark and namess Peak I drank it I

drank it all cellb rimbor in episode two opens a first age bottle of red suggesting that while the war of Wrath was going on this guy's like I need to collect as much wine as I can I'm going to open a first age bottle I have been saving it but fittingly Kell brimborn never gets to drink it because he knocks over the bottle in shock and then in episode three ferzon talks about drinking the wine left behind by his dead father looking at a cup half filled with wine he drunk the night before seemed a

betrayal to to empty the glass he also hated wasting good wine so I drank it ferzon after this asks Muriel if she wants r or white for her coronation dress which also kind of feels like a red wine versus white wine sort of thing Crimson foror's future a white her past so what's the deal with the wine here it sounds like to drink or to even uncork wine is to surrender to the temptation of power on the show like wine it does not quench one's thirst it just kind of and intoxicates one's senses but it

is something sourced from the earth from the grape vine it it's bound to the Earth and bound to generations of decomposed life and volcanic ash that enriches the soil it's kind of like Sauron is running the vineyard from the soil that morgoth tilled after regaining human form howand saaron steps into a Crossfade superimposition that makes it look like he's walking directly into flames like reforging himself on this new life path to be a Smith how meets this man named diarmid who's played by Nicholas Woodson they say there's places across the sea a man can escape

himself find another path perhaps another life since morgoth was a Valar who was banished and denied access to valinor the Mayar who served morgoth like Sauron was also denied access so the idea of a new life across the sea stings bitterly for Sauron here the fact that diarmid keeps calling him friend is something that how br/ Saron will pick up as a way to disarm strangers as we saw how brand do throughout season 1 on the ship de Army tells him that the way to be good is to choose to be good each day and

the next and the next until it becomes part of your nature but Sauron doesn't even make it one day the sea serpent which toen by the way also would call a fish Dragon so that's what I'm going to call it a fish Dragon because that's sick it attacks and how brand given his first chance to be good he just snatches that Southland King heraldry pouch from diarmid and leaves the old man to die the fish Dragon bee lines for how brand but averts at the last second because as we'll see later with the Warg siron

has the ability to manipulate animals it's part of how he is considered the Lord of werewolves yes he's a shape shifter who's taken all kinds of forms but he's also just someone who can kind of like control animals in this way so my job is basically watching TV and I watch all kinds of stuff there from streaming shows to Blu-ray movies to Live Events and more what I need from a TV is the best picture and video possible without having to navigate a thousand menus every time the input changes and wondering if I forgot a

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qled 8K TV and qer Soundbar are the best combo I've ever come across it's so crazy click the link in the description to get your new favorite TV today so we were return to the moment where gadreel met how brand and their look just focuses a few seconds longer with some menacing music tiddes of Fate are flowing yours may be heading in around now another Motif that we see on the rings of power at least more than we see in Peter Fran and philippa's movies is the importance of tides and waves to Tolen so tolken

often wrote about a recurring nightmare that he had that he called his Atlantis complex The Great Wave an apocalyptic tsunami that would rise up and swallow the land he gave this dread to faramir in the text and in the films Awin describes this dream in the Return of the King extended edition it is of course the fate of numor Mariel saw it in her vision last season but tides and waves also play just a far bigger role for most of the characters on the series tides of course brought gadriel and hbr together Tides took iser's

mother from him they motivate Kieran the ship right there was even the very first scene of the series The flashback to valanor with young Galadriel and her boat and thin R's wisdom about knowing the difference between the sky and the water that reflects the sky so far I'll say in the series water has been largely a source of Darkness of chaos and destruction gadel fails to catch Eland in the three Elven rings and right upon her arrival to face Gil gallad Dead Leaves continue to fall from their great tree Gil gallad asks who is this

man he is no man ha her phrasing is a nod to awin's Big line in Return of the King I am no man now this Series has to be a bit careful with how much it can reference the Lord of the Rings movies which are still Warner Brothers things and the token estate has dictated exactly how much this Amazon Prime show can reference and what parts of History we should also recognize that ao's line in token's text is different she says but no living man am I gadel confesses he crack is actually I guess a

neoc cinder expression that means something like danger but the way Benjamin Walker says it it's kind of like God damn it Galadriel says he deceived me I was deceived no gadriel you were blind ah they have morphed Clark repeat the word deceived kind of to Echo Kate Blanchett as gladel in the fellowship prologue but they were all of them deceived meanwhile Elon Echoes his future Hugo weaving self by saying they must be destroyed that decision is far above your privilege yes you can totally imagine this character standing right behind a seeler inside of Mount Doom

and in this shot the camera swings around to frame gilgalad and gadriel together now as the high King's position has swung against elron elon's Cape you'll notice Bears this Compass icon and this is a common Circle in diamond shape we also see it in the clasps of Gil ged's cape and it seems to be honoring the guiding star and the moral compass of elon's father aend who is honored as a statue in noor's Harbor looking out at the sea much like Elon does at this waterfall cliff in the war of Wrath AR andal was aided

by the Valar and its fate was to eternally Traverse the great ocean with the simal from morgoth's Iron crown and guard the Sun and Moon so now when elron says that he can't hand over the Rings you know I cannot he's saying that it would really be a betrayal to his lineage and to his father as Kyan compliments Elon later you do your father proud elron to Dr Richard kimbles over the waterfall and I love how based on what happens in this episode he ultimately does this for nothing we transition to the volcanic fire of

Mount Doom where elron will of course one day beg a silder to throw the One Ring into Hal brand turns himself into to Adar and Charlie Vickers really heightens the southlander accent to play the Masquerade to Adar so that he can properly Shake him with the phrase of a power over flesh without tipping him off that he actually is Sauron and on the way East to run which is an area mentioned but actually unexplored by token's writings The eastar Stranger has a nightmare vision of a staff now we don't know for sure yet if this

is Gandalf or just one of the blue Wizards or just a newari character I will say that finally revealing that how brand was saon and freeing us from the mystery box guessing game of the character made him so much more fun to watch and I hope that that will be the case with this wizard I'm tired of wondering if he's Gandalf or someone else but this season focusing so much on the staff could itself be a clue because tolken derived the name gandal from The Old Norse words of Gand which means wand or staff and

Al which means his name really translates to staff elf the staff or the gun is very important to the Gandalf character Nori and Poppy underlined this in episode two he's afraid he lose control again without a Gand now in this scene touching his gond gives him visions of the lava and Mountain Doom in the shape of an eye as well as the dark wizard played by Kieran Hines and the Whirlwind with Nori and Poppy in coming episodes he places his hand over the ground to Magic the tree and the shifting Pebbles totally remind us of

the grains of sand showing the formation of Arta and the opening titles from season 1 and technically season 2 like there has got to be a connection among this and irer singing to assemble the world together and even daa singing to connect to the mountain similarly The Stranger producing Beetles from the dead tree doesn't it feel like a sort of false Resurrection the way the great Tree in Lynden comes back to life is really just like a false Celebration The Stranger talks about his half forgotten Homeland sometimes I perceive a glimmer of it nonetheless I'm

longing for a feeling I can't remember or even name but I know it's real just beyond the sunset yes we are reminded of Frodo deep in Mordor when he forgot the pleasures of the Shire like the taste of strawberries and how important Sam and even his spice rack really were to the quest as a reminder of the home that they were fighting for but I also cannot help but feel like the stranger is talking about valinor like a glimmer just beyond the sunset it's kind of like he's reaching for the details that Gandalf paints to

Pippen in return to the king gray rain curtain of this world rolls back and all turns to Silver glass a far Green Country into a swift Sunrise so we meet the elf Lord Kyan played by Ben Daniels who's played a number of roles like in the crown and as Rebel General anmer blue Squadron pilot in Star Wars Rogue one Kiran was largely omitted from Peter Jackson's films but in tolken text he was there at elrond and a silder side for all the major events at the end of the second age Kieran is a master ship

right for the elves he oversees the construction of the boats that they take to Valor he's depicted here with a beard and The Following episode shows him shaving with a sea shell and I love this reference because it's referencing the debate among tolken Scholars about kieran's beard when Frodo meets Kieran at the grey Havens at the end of The Return of the King text he's described by tolken as having a beard but all elves are really just understood to be clean shaven so everyone's kind of like wait huh why does he have a beard so

depicting him as initially bearded followed by the shell shave is kind of just the writers having some fun with this whole debate among the Nerds the gray havens of Lyndon are not yet as built up as they are when we see them at the end of Return of the King it's because Kieran at this point in history is really just keeping things simple with the humble Workshop the trip to Valor is supposed to be a spiritual transition anyway so it follows that this Workshop should kind of feel like a simple Monastery or like a funeral

home right like they're really building like floating elf caskets Ken looks out at the sunset yes that is the music of alinor that we heard last season you know when they just kind of stood on the boats but for Kieran he's also yearning for his brother because Kieran was supposed to sail west of valanor with his brother but he missed the boat he will eventually be on the very final boat that leaves Middle Earth long after we see gadriel and Gandalf and Bilbo and Frodo and ELR leave at the end of Return of the King

Gil galled says that he should have gadriel cast to the etan Moores for what she's done the Eton Moores are the Highland of arador known to the two-headed ettin resemble Hill trolls Kieran tells elron of a place to destroy the Rings long ago there was a battle one whose weapons were the very bones of the continent he's referring to the war of Wrath which resulted in the sinking of the bend and it's interesting how he describes the land as having bones in episode two the D is refer to the mountain as having bones it's interesting

across these cultures they're talking about Middle Earth as if it's all part of one body and here Kieran is talking about a scar in that body it just follows that if one part of the body is poisoned like in the case of Mordor all of Middle Earth is now ill Nori and the stranger reunite with poppy who helps them realize that the words of the wandering day The Amazing song that closed their AR GL season are really meant to be a literal D Vinci Code for them to follow based on visual landmarks like we're in

a National Treasure movie or The Goonies yes it's very silly but it does suggest that Poppy's mother who taught her the words of that song might have come from a generation of harfoot who explored Rune and even included this closing lyric not all who Wonder or wander are lost as a bit of encouragement that the path requires a bit bit of feeling like you're wandering a bit of imaginative wondering whether something looks like a tree or a stone or not and to just trust the song in your heart and I think there's something beautiful about

that as Kyan prepares to drop the three rings into the crack the tides of Fate bump his boat to knock the pouch open a bit which is another example of a Great Wave even a small wave but still a wave bringing further chaos into this world this scene happens just before Daybreak you can actually see the sun about to rise on the East behind Kieran the light of the Valor is not in control here darkness of the water is Adar and walri forc saon to declare loyalty I love to serve the Lord of M to

the end of my days and days yeah he pulled a verbal fast one there he doesn't vow to serve at R in particular he only vows to serve himself because he views himself as a lord of Mordor and the framing of the shot leaves one eye exposed the literal eye of Sauron gazing into his future Kyan arrives in lyen wearing naria Nya tumbles to gad's feet Gil galled puts on Vila and they're all just kind of like Enchanted by these Rings like they are not themselves at All In This Moment light returns to the great

tree causing it to glow like T perion and gadriel smiles I think more than morphid Clark has ever Smiled On the show like she's definitely back to being that little girl on valinor looking up at the two trees with her brother but listen to the music here yeah it's kind of like a minor chord there right it evokes The Melody of Howard shes the pity of Gollum the song that plays over the final moments of Two Towers the music that be McCreery comes up for the show is like the best part of it Galadriel Kyan

and Gil galled hold their hands together with this overhead shot that matches Peter Jackson's shot from the fellowship prologue okay onto season 2 episode two where the stars are strange this episode opens with the eye-shaped lava pool in Mount Doom that the istari saw and there is an interesting effect where the Blackness spreads from Mount Doom up through the map toward kazad Doom suggesting that it really is the cancer from Mordor that is disrupting kazad doom and while we were following in the darkness we dissolve into the mountains and its beams of light we now

follow instead which I just think is an interesting metaphor for this season how even light can be deceptive because it is really coming from a darkness that they cannot see we follow the light angled from the mirrors that they used to grow crops in the caverns as we saw in season 1 this is really just like an essential part of the agriculture of the dwarves after mining mithal with elron against his father's wishes Prince Duran the fourth is now an outcast shopping for Discount produce with daa I'm bound to the dwarf I love and I

wouldn't betrayed his heart for a mind full of fire opals fire gems yet it was naria the ring of fire that Kyan betrayed his heart for and you hear a lot the term bound or bind and it's just an interesting recurring word that obviously reminds us of in the darkness binds them right an earthquake causes a huge chunk of rock to smash the bridge if you look closely at least nine dwarves die immediately now there's an updated opening title sequence for season 2 the Earth Tones of the sand in season 1 have now shifted to

Red which could just just canote something as simple as blood but I see it as the red wine of Sauron intoxicating all of these characters through this grape vine the Sands form literally 19 Rings three rings for the elves plus seven for the dwarves plus nine for the men that equals 19 we don't see the one that has been forged somewhere else yet because we haven't gotten there next it kind of forms this tree shape maybe like the golden great Tree in Lindon or the tree of friendship that Elon gave Duren maybe the white tree

of numor next is a crown beneath the Seven Stars of Duran this is the symbol of kazad Doom next An Elegant Archway these are the doors of Duran that I think we're going to see made on this series next we see the horns of a bog next we see the red iris of an eye in which the Red Sand grains form bloody veins of that eye so it's kind of like a bloodshot eye that's been open and staring at us for far too long you'll notice there's more of a focus in these season 2 credits

on images associated with Kaza doom and I think they want us to link DA's singing to the song of the iner we find gadra in a dream planting seeds at the memorial tree of her brother finrod gladel has now gotten a glow up to go with her fancy ring n with her hair braided in an interesting configuration and a golden leaf circlet Kell rimbor appears to announce an unexpected visitor and s's voice echoes in her [Music] mind and we see that the seeds she planted were actually roots for sauron's deadly grasp Kell rimbor speaks the

ring verse in Cinder in as the roots strangle and impale his body and turn him into wood transforming him into essentially his own headstone so I think eladriel is both reading sauron's mind in this moment on what he plans to do to kellmore when he's done with him but also just seeing a possible possible future so it's just another example of like nature light water trees things that we should like siron is taking them and twisting these wholesome healthy things into Sinister forces Galadriel warns Gil gallad and for that he needs not armies but rings

and yes Gil gallad immediately covers vilia for the moment she says this for fear that someone's going to take his prees from him I fly expected him to go Bilbo and go a siron is turned away from Aron but he turns his back to Kell Bimbo's assistant to show his wounded back from his torture from wreg making sure to Fan out the tear in its clothes so that she can see that wound clearly just knowing that these elves are going to take pity on him and appeal to their customs of hospitality in Rune we visit

Karas Guyer the dark Wizard's Fortress we see a blood ritual with these white-winged moths that the dark wizard conjures back into his acolyte from season 1 the light causes her cloak to even look like the folded wings of a moth I love love that detail the dark wizard says the blood I wasted to bring you before me should have been spent on more useful servants H curious to know what's in that back room over there some are speculating that this character could be sauman but the fact that this guy is already involved with dark Deeds

doesn't really line up with what we know about saruman's backstory he really came up as like a very by the books wizard until Sauron infects his mind in the third age Nori and Poppy pitch names for the stranger Dock and wise and frigard these are all just kind of like Hobbit names pulled from the text there's like a dock Brandy Buck from Lord of the Rings Online there is an and wise Roper who's Sam wise game G's uncle and then there is a figar fatty Bulger a hobbit from the books who was friends with Mary

and the other Hobbits but was too scared to go with them when they left the Shire now the desert Riders who pursue them for the dark wizard had their Mad Max masks added in post-production according to the showrunners that could be why their masks just look a little too shiny or just like steampunky for Middle Earth so we see the exterior Gates of kazad Doom after the earthquake and notice how one of the dwarf statues that was there in the earlier shot has now crumbled we meet the dwarf narvi whose name in the future will

appear alongside cellb rimbor on the doors of Duran so I assume this character is going to return daa's Stone singing only makes things worse so clearly the return of Sauron was so discordant that it ruined the harmonic connection between the dwarves and the Rocks he's like the person at the concert who's trying to sing along with Taylor or Olivia and is just so toned deaf and just ruins the EXP for everyone gadel meets elron as he works on a boat and I love that we go from this initial shot of him just like sanding something

small in the foreground and then we cut to this reverse shot that shows oh actually he's Whitted down an entire freaking tree trunk it's kind of like in the will FOH movie Elf when we see how fast elves are expected to build toys same rules apply to the toiling of elves in Middle Earth gadriel says Sauron used me and under his hand I was played like a harp to a Melody not of my choosing it was entirely of your choosing Sauron looked inside you and plucked the very song of your soul note by note ah

composer bar mccre in this moment plays sauron's theme with a harp in the background just another example A saran's melodic manipulation Kieran tells Elon that the Rings themselves can still be a Pure Source of good despite the context that created them being corrupted judge the work and leave judgment concerning those who wrought it to the judge who sees all things knowing that it was a writer's room that produced this line it touches on the debate of separate the art from the artist that fans of properties are struggling with nowadays like when you have authors like

JK Rowling taking certain stances online is it still okay to love Harry Potter of course it is but you do have to do some like mental compartmentalization right and not all people especially not all age groups are capable of doing this as Kon says it takes humility and that humility takes Decades of life experience to accept and meanwhile elron as the younger of the two is really speaking to the part of society who is insisting on Purity tests I just love this whole conversation because I don't think either character is wrong but ultimately history will

prove Eland to be the more correct of the two kedan sticks his hand with naria into the water to command some fish and I love the scared little jump that elanda does when the fish jumps out the istari stranger finds the gond from his vision as the brace pole at the well and he uses it to create a whirlwind to take out the dark Wizard's Riders but also it blows his hard fooot friends away like the kids at the bounce house in the [Music] accident Kell bbor shows his assistant his latest invention I have called

it ethine made from our last sliver of methil out of the Moonlight it is all but invisible yes Athen was what was on the doors of Duran and fellowship that only revealed itself in the Moonlight saaron too is revealed in the Moonlight down in the courtyard and he focuses his concentration on summoning the rainstorm we have to acknowledge that this is the worst umbrella design ever it does not keep the person holding the umbrella dry and Kell primor looks soaked too so how useful is this Sauron manipulates Kell rimbor by appealing to him as a

Craftsman who once above all else credit for his work it's the oldest tale there is isn't it the true creators toil till their Knuckles bleed and then they come along take whatever profits them most and forget all about us and again just pointing out that this show was written by a writer's room as the 2023 Writers Guild strike was looming Sauron notices Kell bmore weeping upon learning that his three rings worked and he takes a moment to make a move on this crybaby and pronounced himself as a messenger from The Valor Sauron extinguishes all the

light sources from the room and he blazes the hearth and represents himself in the form of anatar never again will the world Overlook you as the mere Sion of FY but forever more Revere you the Lord of the Rings okay I did not need anatar to say the Lord of the Rings like we get it but the visual Majesty of this whole presentation is undeniably great like he absolutely looks like an angel coming from heaven and they even darken his face by the Light Beyond him it's not his appearance it's like the light that he

has dressed himself with and notice how Charlie Vickers has dropped the southlander accent and just speaks in this kind of Posh English brogue the kind that the characters play the elves use now for context tolken described anatar this way wearing the fairest form that he could contrive in oron saon posed as an emissary of the Valar sent by them to mle Earth or ordered by them to remain there to give Aid to the elves and then in another passage Sauron took to himself the name of anatar the Lord of gifts but the fairest form that

he could contrive it's worth noting that how brand was an invention by the show so when Charlie Vickers appeared just wearing a wig in the trailers various Skeptics including myself wondered how is Kell bmore going to not recognize how brand this is why we have to just be patient and wait for these shows to provide the answers Sauron in these episodes earns Kell Bimbo's trust by telling partial truths and appealing to his ego and then he puts on this spectacle to make him look like he carries the light of the Valor and it's so blinding

and Kell bmore is so needy of validation that it works and we we've been in this position before we've been blinded by problematic people in our Lives who are in plain sight just because we need them to be what we want them to be but make no mistake this form of anatar comes not from the sunlight but from the fire fire that is no different than the fires of Mount Doom now I have to say in these first few episodes I have not been crazy about the contrived communication barriers to keep Kell rimbor and oron

with anatar and then gadriel Elon Kieran and Gil galled and Lyndon and all of them so far unable to see anatar but I'm curious to see if this little charade works on them too or whether his light will just reshape the reality so that they don't really see the face of how brand anymore season 2 episode 3 The Eagle in the scepter this episode opens as a horse short film following baric is s's horse who's just two Rats list to join ellenel and Valen and the numor ends back to numor and I keep wearing this

horse Boy shirt for a reason because this world lives and dies based on where solo horses gallop and how fast they do it grab this shirt under red riot. shop I'm Eric Boss and this is baric boss horse kicking an orc into a tree branch which just shows that this horse also understands the power of trees on the show baric finds a seer in this cave baric my boy ah but this is no cave this is shelob's Lair yes the Shob from Return of the King sheab is the last child of angolan the spider creature

that helped morgoth kill the two trees but sheilo is noticeably smaller in this series than she is when she fights Sam of course because you know we're still a whole age away from that still in the most graphic death yet on this season the spider leaves on this orc's head and it just like crushes the head and rips it apart and then right after doing that I love this she raises her legs in a kind of flexing posture like a WWE wrestler saying you're next brother but they're able to get away thank God I hate

spider scenes and back in numor ellil who's already there places a seashell on the Tomb of the late King tar paler while Ellen's daughter AR aren calls him out as king he always protected the faithful you speak so freely of dead Kings yet you refuse to what tell your own son's name just a reminder that Arn is a creation of the show and they seem to to have raised the status of the character in this season now that her voice is going to be a significant anti-al faction in court with this line she also reminds

me of Gandalf in Return of the King who lamented min's descent into a society focused on building tombs and heraldry from the past and not on their living descendants so she's also saying hey you're not properly mourning iser and you're also not properly focusing on your daughter and he's probably like hey you weren't even in the books now the statue in the background of this funeral chamber looks like a weeping woman and it could be nana the queen of the Valor who is acquainted with grief and sorrow but also pity and courage Muriel left Blind

by the events of season 1 asks Ellen deal to be her eyes of the political drama that's unfolding we meet Lord bagar from the north shaking hands with power Zone it seems like they're going for what we often saw in The Sopranos funerals are common places where power Brokers conspire and Forge New alliances a mother of a Dead numenorian Soldier slaps Muriel similar to The Grieving Miss kitner slapping Chief Brody in Jaws ferone offers Muriel the options of a crimson dress or a white dress for the coronation and Muriel can only remember that her father

wore white signal that he was focused on the numan's Elven past and that an eagle appeared it is rare for an eagle to Grace a coronation should one make an appearance at yours it would be seen as an auspicious Omen ooh signs importance it's not known in tolkien's writings for Eagles to have this kind of like magical or symbolic sign off on transitions of power like they're not like Articuno or some [ __ ] but Peter Jackson made the choice not to have animals like eagles and Wars talk even though Eagles absolutely talk in tolken

text and the fact that this show sticks to it is just like kind of a bummer because I want to hear what these Eagles actually have to say and the fact that Peter Jackson didn't let them talk is part of the reason why so many people were like oh why didn't they just take the Eagles to Mordor to destroy the Rings well if you learn that these Eagles actually can talk and have a reason not to get involved in the conflict because of past wars in the first age you know the answer to that question

like if they tried to fly the Rings over there they would have been spotted by you know the Fel beasts and by the ey of siron and they would have been taken down they had to be sneaky and handp them into Mordor with two unassuming Hobbits who can turn themselves into rocks at a moment's notice but in the scene Muriel chooses the humbler white gown which ferzon definitely takes a note of who totally wears red at the coronation leader he knows what he's doing back in mardor Adar speaks with glug and I love this name

glug this is an orcu has a wife and child now you probably seen some of the consternation over this online but just to clarify while Peter Jackson's films showed the urai hatching out of mud pods and Orcs have primarily just been depicted as an evil spiteful who just are the baddies there are several examples in token's writings in which Orcs were understood to have their own society and reproduced sexually in Return of the King froto told Sam the shadow did not give life to the Orcs it only ruined them and twisted them and if they

are to live at all they have to live like other living creatures in the annals of Aman tolken wrote for the oror had life and multiplied after the manner of the children of alvatar and not that had life of its own nor the semblance thereof could ever Mel or make since his Rebellion and then in a 1963 letter to miss munby tolken wrote there must have been orc women but just admitted that the story he was telling focused on their service as soldiers to evil Lords look I think we all know there's just going to

be some people who don't like the show who are going to use this as an example of how it's changing Lord of the Rings but the reality is many fans understandings of Lord of the Rings begin and end with the interpretation in the Peter Jackson films and the showrunners of this show Patrick and JB I think are bigger tolken nerds than most people complaining about the show on the internet to be clear there are plenty of gripes to be with this show from its pacing to its logic issues to a lot of goofy dialogue but

you know I think when it comes to getting tolken right it pretty much knows what it's doing aside from letting the Eagles talk Adar welcomes damrod Hill troll of the Arid mithin killer of stone giants Eater of dragon bones he's voiced by Gil gallad actor Benjamin Walker and I like how in these scenes when Adar Pats glugs chest you'll notice that Adar still has that scar on his hand from when how brand stabbed him at the end of the last season Kell bmore welcomes Duran and daa to Aron showing them a new forage expansion that's

being built with Seven slots for the Seven Dwarf Rings they plan to cast and I love how during the scene anatar stays in the shadows watching down over them from the upper level letting Kell bimor do the talking for him but also note there are seven lights above anatar head like the Seven Stars of Duren in the Kaza Doom sigil but anatar initially misjudges Duren bringing your father a means of saving his kingdom might be just the way to earn back his respect perhaps even your inheritance it's not Duran's inheritance or even the respect of

his father that fully drives him it's really his friendship with Elon but then when when Duran calls [ __ ] on anatar even knowing elron anatar gets so petty elron said that you were the wisest of all the dwarves did he speak true or is there someone else we should be treating with I also appreciate the camera tricks in this section to really set dur Anda in an elf realm where everything would be bigger to them they use Force perspective camera angles larger doubles of the forge set that are built higher up to their chests

and in the courtyard outside they use VFX to blend the characters into the background so that when dieso walks away she walks just past these two taller elves it's so smooth that it's just even hard to notice all the work that they did to make this work isiler finds a Dead Soldier in a puddle and takes his boots visually this location reminds us of the Dead marshes from Two Towers but those Dead faces would not be there in the water yet because those were actually soldiers from the Battle of dagger lad in the last Alliance

years from now but ultimately is silder will reach his own watery fate someday not far from this area after he takes one ring from Sauron he's stabbed in the thigh by estrid and he snaps at her for taking out the knife which I was happy to see because TV shows always yank out the weapon after someone gets stabbed and medically that is the worst thing to do leave it in until you get to the doctor in palar gear which is an old num orian settlement that we'll see a lot more on this show maybe even

to next season iron Deere saves a Hilder and estrid from Wildman as he gathers firewood for bronwin funeral P so actress nazanin bonati chose not to return for the second season and is taking a break from acting and her character was killed off screen supposedly from a foul tipped Arrow aand Deere tries to be a father figure to Theo and I like using his woodland elf strength he's able to carry eight buckets at a time while Theo just carries one Aaron Deere says that he was born in belerian now would lies on the wave ah

wave another example of describing water itself as a wave like all water in the show is a form of tolkien's Great Wave Theo tells Aron dear did you know my father no neither did I and I know he wasn't you the in season 2 reminds me of Jack from into the woods who in act two becomes a bitter orphan who's bent on Revenge and has to understand that we're all just part of a story yes my money is on him to become one of the Ring bearing Kings to become the na school he's just you

know kind of a crank heer confesses that his mother drowned by saving him when he was 10 and he swam out further than he should have into a rip tide but he never told anyone it was his fault ever since I felt bound to try and do something singular something special to try and find a way to earn what she did ah again bound as in in the darkness bind them estd responds I don't know if you can earn a thing like that I think you just have to accept it as a gift as in

Bor descri describing the one ring as a gift at the Council of Elon Theo cries while he listens to this making me wonder if he might feel responsible for bronn's death in a similar way and that both of these men will grow older seeking rings of power as ways to redeem their Dead Mothers estd covers her brand mark from Adar with a new Burn Scar Tissue it's clear that she did something she's not proud of in service to Adar is Seal dur and Theo team up in a very silly yet somewhat successful plan to get

baric back from the Wildman Theo gets held but the group is ambushed by we're pretty sure these are inss based on the way Theo gets lifted up but the first move that the an did was to throw one of the axes back at The Lumberjacks like we've definitely seen an throw giant chunks of stone when they're stacking Eisen guard but to like fling an axe with this kind of accuracy that's impressive we end the episode back in numor for the coronation mirel wears white but ferzon wears red seems like actually it's bigar who somewhere in

the background begins a shout of the queen Who Lies it was him it was him just to get the crowd going aarian produces the paler to accuse Muriel of using Elvin sorcery to guide her decision-making and even with ferzon trying to give her an out by saying that the true ruler would never do this and he orders a scene Stone destroyed something he does by the way because from his meeting earlier with Muriel he knows that she is totally a crystal girl Muriel takes the bait no the plan here is mine we need it yes

it's mine I need it we are totally reminded of Frodo saying the ring is mine when he was so close to dropping the one ring in the fires of Mount Doom but an eagle arrives Pres dobly is a good omen for Muriel to bless her coronation but fizone opportunistically seizes this moment with the sunlight brightening his red clothes for everyone to see at belar gets his goofiest slow clap chant going this is why I'm really mad at this decision to not let the Eagles talk because if the eagle could talk he could easily just clear

things up he'd be like oh no no no I'm not here for this guy I'm here for her or couldn't the eagle you know just kind of like use a wing or a Talon to knock fison over out of the way and then like Bob his head dur Muriel like this whole moment just is kind of weird apparently according to editors who worked on the season they had to remove a lot of key numor scenes so it kind of resulted in the numor subplot just feeling rushed and confusing this is what happens when you insist

on shooting a show during a writer strike and you don't have writers on set who can do late rewrites to fix this kind of stuff next season 2 episode 4 eldest so who are the eldest of this episode Tom Bombadil of course but let's not forget the trees and the Ants this is a big tree episode the branches of trees will inevitably give this Al his Gand but the term eldest is a superlative form of the word Elder which is a type of wood that potterheads know as the source of the Elder Wand which both

refer to the type of wood the wand was made out of and the ancient status of the superior wand so maybe JD and Patrick are saying the Wizards and Wands of this universe are older than anything JK roling wrote so we open on one of the things elron carved a tree down into kiran's valinor boats but turning their back on that promised afterlife Voyage are El and gadriel the camera stays on those boats through the marching troops in general I just love the camera work and the blocking between elron and glad rail as each of

them childishly upstage each other by stopping in their tracks while the other steps forward and forces that one to turn around Elon does it first and then glad rail does it too the squad they assemble includes voral camir Rion and Dore and these poor elves in this episode they're like the kids in the back of the van while Mom and Dad are arguing over directions gadel in this episode has tied her hair up in this interesting braid in token's letter 348 he wrote she was then of Amazon disposition and bound her hair as has a

crown when taking part in athletic Feats and I just love how gadel this episode totally embodies that based on the map of the AXA Bridge it crosses over the Brandywine River meaning that we would be south of where the Shire will eventually be settled and north of SAR Ford and this episode gives a pretty huge reference to the Shire it's so cool what this episode does with that in the past we've wondered if poppy Brandy foot could actually be the source of the name the Brandy Wine and I'm sure if that actually gets established in

the show no one's going to be mad right actually one of my favorite transitions on the series is how they dissolve from the ink of the map to the real location remember before they showed the letters of Rune glowing like a fieldin on the nighttime desert and that cross dissolve and here the bridge that was completed on the map cross dissolves into it being collapsed in real life elron observes it was caused by lightning and gladel assumes it was Sauron we know Sauron can't control the weather because he conjured the storm and regon maybe that

storm continued to just kind of like float around at different access points around Aon and geographically sealed it off also notice that it looks like the river below has been drained and Gil galad mentioned seeing Rivers Running dry and his Visions back in episode 3 they elect to go south through the turn gorad otherwise known as the Barrow Downs which in the text is actually where the hobbits meet Tom Bombadil which is is fun that we see Tom Bombadil in a different location in this episode but when this location gets mentioned galadriel's mind drifts ah

for these wearers of trinkets nothing triggers them more than a hand reaching out toward them from the abyss cuz it's kind of like they're going to take my ring I also appreciate the possibility that sirron might actually have less to do with these roadblocks and it's actually just Galadriel is that paranoid and just that paranoia has been one effective way he has gotten under her skin in Rune The aari Stranger finds this guy Tom Bombadil played by Rory caner Tom Bombadil shows up in the Old Forest in Fellowship of the Ring singing songs and possessing

a mysterious magical quality such as being resistant to the One Ring being able to chill out old man Willow and face down the barow whites J.R Tolen has never established what exactly he is but readers have speculated that he could be a myar or just some kind of Earthly Spirit really Tom Bombadil is like just kind of a Vibe and it's so cool to see him finally in live action because Peter Jackson omitted Tom badil from his films when asked about Tom padil tolken wrote in a letter do you think Tom badil the spirit of

the vanishing Oxford and Berkshire Countryside could be made into the hero of the story or is he as I suspect fully enshrined in the enclosed verses here Tom sings Hey these are the lyrics of the nonsensical walking song that Tom sings around the hobbits and fellowship and they are listed in the index as one continuous song just read these lyrics they're crazy but it's what Tom Bombadil is all about Tom comes back to different parts of these lyrics throughout the episode but you'll notice that sandflies in the grass bees around the willow are new lyrics

so Tom apparently changes the words as he goes throughout his life or whatever you call his existence but who knows maybe bees around the willow is just him singing to those bees that are in his line of sight with a beehive in the background when that scrap of satic map leaves a stranger's hand and lands on the branch of old man Ironwood the way Tom watches it implies that he might be controlling that wind or he can commune with the forces or the force that is controlling this Breeze The Stranger thinks this branch is the

gond from his Visions but the tree swallows him I like how many of these effects look practical they use the trees branch and the leaves to mask the final slurp of the stranger's hand behind the bark but of course this is based on the hobbits running with old man Willow and Fellowship in the Old Forest old man Willow was a spirit in a tree who wrapped around Mary and Pippen but Tom Bombadil sings to the tree a similar scene occurs in Two Towers in the fangorn forest but it's tree beard the an who saves them

this tree is named old man Ironwood and I'm going to assume that he's somehow related to Old Man Willow Nori and Poppy meet Mary Mack played by Gabi sing chera who is a store stores are one of the three breeds of genealogical predecessors to Hobbits along with harfoot and fello hides Mary Mack introduces himself as nobody which feels like it might be a reference to the Odyssey when aysus tells the Cyclops that his name is nobody so that when he stabs the Cyclops in the eye the Cyclops is like that nobody's blind me and everyone

else is like shut the hell up dude we actually hear some similar word play from the Gund later nobody's that stupid the G says oh so he's a great big Grand Elf ah we are definitely getting closer to them finally revealing this guy to be Gandalf especially all the stuff about names being things that you use yourself coming from this stranger this episode and the importance of his quest in past episodes and the importance of this quest for this branch and and of course Tom bombadil's line later wizard staff is like a name it's yours

to wield already we also heard this line though well the only wizard under these Skies is the dark wizard so I don't know maybe we could look at the Stranger in this dark wizard as the two blue Wizards I'm leaning more towards Gandalf though Brank the captain of the Guard dream says the wizard has joined up with the hermit which confirms that Tom must be the hermit and maybe the same hermit of the hermit's Hat constellation now we see Brank in the god dream throughout this episode and apparently according to JD and Patrick every time

we see their mask it has been CGI in to cover their faces that's why it looks so shiny they did a pretty good job with the CGI but apparently they also had to ADR over what they were saying before I just have a lot of questions over what really these writers are all about Tom Bombadil pulls the stranger out of old man Ironwood eat Earth dig deep drink water ah this is what Tom says to Old Man Willow to free the hobbits and fellowship and in the movie to Tower as Peter Jackson gives a line

to tree beard eat Earth dig deep drink water and since the stranger getting sucked into Old Man Ironwood was practical I love that his being freed from the tree is also practical Rory kir uses his body to block the opening and David Wayman comes out of a concealed opening Tom says back in the withy window folk used to call me Bombadil ah the wiy window is a tributary feeding into the Brandy Wine River and it's around where Tom lives in Fellowship he actually has a song about it because of course he does inside Tom continues

his walking song sinks now goldber when night sh then the door will open H so the stranger asks who the other voice was and we heard Tom call her goldberry and goldberry is Tom's wife in The Old Forest little is known about the origin and nature of goldberry except that it is implied that she is a River Spirit of the river Wily Windle and it is said that she is the river woman's daughter tolken described goldberry as the seasonal changes of Nature and Tom Bombadil is the nature Spirit of the English Countryside both Tom and

goldberry are Primal spirits of nature he of the land and its produce and she of the water but I'm curious about Tom's response about this voice and he says is some other person here and he's like no but it's probably because he doesn't consider her a person like himself he is just a spirit a force of nature but I just love the way Rory caner plays this so elof and chill you know he doesn't really get rattled by anything it could just be only he can really see that Spirit and the spirit is really just

invisible to the nature in fact the spirit might have just been the wind that blew that map out of his hand so any kind of like moving fluid whether it's water or wind that's basically what she is Tom says and I am old elest Tom was there before the river and the trees Tom remembers the first rrop and the first Acorn this comes from Tom's quote in Fellowship eldest that's what I am mark my words my friends Tom was here before the river and the trees Tom remembers the first raindrop in the first Acorn he

made paths before the big people and he saw the little people arriving he was here before the Kings and the graves and the barow whites when the elves passed Westward Tom was here already before the trees were bent he knew the dark Under the Stars when it was Fearless before the Dark Lord came from the outside Tom says that part here and he adds this he knew the dark Under the Stars when it was Fearless this old place used to be green now so s so I think we're actually getting some backstory on R the

eastern part of this world I wonder if it's because the people from the East served morgoth in the first age and the ballar punished it by turning it into a desert the dark Under the Stars when it was Fearless it's just such an interesting phrase that I'm pretty sure just applies to morgoth or just whatever the shadow is meanwhile the elves get down on the barow Downs they hear a voice in The Wind ah this is the chant of the barow whites from the Old Forest that Fran and Philippa actually gave as a line to

Gollum and Two Towers when he was just creeping everyone out by talking to himself call be Heart and Hand and Bone and call be Travelers far from home in fact in the vocal mix one of the voices kind of sounds like Andy circus's Golem never aw we learned that sauron's return has so toxified this land that these dark Spirits have reanimated but Elon puts his nerdy trivia to work by realizing that you need to use the bar White's own intuned weapons against them and he even says according to the Lord which is just so perfect

arer is silder and estrid go out looking for Theo and estrid proves her loyalty despite her burned over Mark of Adar by saving them from the mud and it's another example of the power of trees branches and guns estr uses this stick to free them but she ends up just proding this mudworm aroner is able to cut himself out and he says there are nameless things in the Deep places of this world this one you shall call supper it's such a cool line but it's also another example of the ancient things of this world not

always having names like the stranger or Tom calling himself just eldest the gun recognizes the name of satic burrow as a descendant of Rory MOS burough from the stores he dreamed one night of a place with endless streams of cold water and rolling ills So Soft family could dig an O and live in it in less than a month he called it the suat the suat is another name for the Shire so this series is explaining the origin of the Shire and I really love this idea that it's really kind of a Biblical promised land

for these wandering tribes and by the time we meet Bilbo and froto there they're really basking in this land of milk and honey gadriel touches Nya and experiences a vision so let's break down everything we see in these few seconds siron is grabbing his three-pointed crown then that is Elon being held by Orcs with a knife to his throat and then whoa the courtyard of oron while Orcs are toppling the statue of fanor over on the right I'm pretty sure that's Gil galled and Elon being forced to watch this then Kell rimbor falls on his

face and then Sauron back in a darker haired Mordor flavored how brand look is looking down at gadriel I'm pretty sure we're hearing bar mccc's Last Temptation track here which includes how Brand's theme so gadriel is being corrupted with confusion between a possible future and Destiny like between a worst case scenario or the one fated path that she is walking down and forcing her life into and polar gear we meet ants the one with blooms is the ant wife winter Bloom voiced by Olivia Williams and the male is snaggle root voed by Jim Broadbent int

wives you say by the third age tree beard said the int wives had disappeared after leaving their in husbands so it's unclear what happened to them between now and then but maybe they were destroyed by saon after setting up a new forest or maybe they just were betrayed by their int husbands and walked away and that's kind of what forgiveness takes an age is kind of hinting at arander says I am AR of the Greenwood mhm this might suggest that Arend Deere is from Greenwood the great which would justify why he speaks cerin when he's

calming down winter Bloom and apologizing now he did say he was born in ban but maybe after it sank he was raised in the Greek winter Bloom responds forgiveness takes an age and again I just love this line because it speaks to how long it will take ant to trust creatures like this again later on in the third age and it also just speaks to the deeper themes of the show like is forgiveness possible is change possible yeah but like it takes an age and really only characters who live that long are capable of ultimately

realizing forgiveness like you know elves num orians descended from elves and things like ant and Tom badil Tom badil forgives all of us and they explain what they consider peace to be and again I just love love this language this is what comes after the night storms When the Dawn is silent and the birds awaken when the only sound here was the light upon the MOs we definitely feel a parallel with the eldest Tom Bombadil who remembers ancient times when there was just light and then Darkness was kept at Bay and when they were able

to recover Theo arender calls him Lord of parlar gear and if that's a title that sticks it could put Theo on a course to become one of these Royal figures like the rat now we see the orc's war path on the map as they fell trees and the ink of those trees gets erased from the map that's such a cool detail Nya is able to heal the arrow wound and she hands the ring to elron while she faces the orc and the action is so smooth here gadriel snatches a torch and then uses it to

turn her arrows into flaming ones all in one motion and then a little bit after this she throws a lantern up into the air and then splits it with an arrow to rain fire down on these Orcs but she gets knocked off her horse and then Adar extinguishes her arrow and he says this Ellen alel whoa so Adar just called Galadriel alel which is the quenia name that her husband kelborn gave her and she loved so much that she referred to herself as Galadriel the cerin version of the same name and caliborn is not on

the show and they've never had a good reason for why he's not on the show so what does it mean that Adar calls her that here is it like a possible term of endearment is it possible that he called her that in maybe just a mocking way because she's wearing her hair wrapped in a crown like this but equally important are the words a star Shines on the hour of our meeting or as he says in qua Lum because these words are also spoken by Frodo when he meets the elf gildor in Fellowship but really

the phrase comes up in a letter that tolken wrote to his son saying that a fan once asked him what Lord of the Rings was really about if it was an allegory and Tolen said that he was just trying to create a situation where El Lum which would be a common greeting so from that people have inferred that maybe Lord of the Rings was just an exercise for token's love of language even though toen I don't care what you think you lived through the two World Wars you watched your son go off to war in

World War II the Eagles were the Americans I think it's okay for us to take away your authorial intent and say that that story is actually about World War II but if you ask tolken this was his way into his own story he was a linguist he loved language he loved the sound of words and just putting them together in beautiful ways and that's why he's one of the most significant writers of all of the English language and I will say that this series despite its faults despite it being perhaps a vanity project by what

of the awful billionaires of our lifetimes at the end of the day it's okay for us to love the work that got produced despite people who funded it because I think what JD and Patrick have created is an exercise in Love For What tolken loved this show is beautiful to look at beautiful to listen to beautiful to read into the Poetry of even if it doesn't always work as compelling TV drama because not all those who wander or wonder are lost okay season 2 episode 5 Halls of stone the Misty Mountains cross dissolve into the

exact Contour of the blue gem housed in the ring of Thor king during the third's huge fingers dropping to grabbit and with the detail on each of these fingers and these well manicured fingernails it's kind of like a Giant's hand is pinching the tip of the mountain itself as burying this ring probably makes this King feel pretty Godly so the Ring of Thor as it will one day be known is the most wellknown of the Seven Dwarf Rings the first forged by Kell rimbor and the one most written about in the lore the Ring of

Thor got its name from th a Dwarven King in the third age who would go on to inherit this ring when during the third takes this ring here he hears disembodied Whispers it's kind of like the Rings themselves are kind of whispering and conspiring against them as these six other Dwarven Kings will be doing in the days ahead it's so tragic when he think back on the scene based on what Duran later tells his son in the finale I never let you lift your hand just you just you getting stronger so Duran adding this ring

to his one ringless finger was motivated in part out of fear that that his son would one day become stronger than him Duran learns a lesson All fathers must learn the burden of all Masters we are what they grow Beyond now Sauron was not able to affect the dwarves directly even when they were wearing the Rings he was only able to do this to men however the Dwarven Rings would lead to the downfall of these wearers Anyway by amplifying their greed resulting in the amassing of treasure the treasure smog sits upon in the Lonely Mountain

in The Hobbit this was a treasure that he stole from Thor in the lore the elves didn't make a second batch of seven rings for dwarves and then nine for humans but rather they just kind of made all 19 for themselves 16 with anatar help and then three later in secret when saon made the One Ring the elves were immediately aware of him and took off their Rings that's when siron attacked regon and stole the 15 of the Rings one was hidden in kazad Doom and three were crafted in secret by cellb rimbor siron then

distributed these rings to the dwarves and Men basically as a plan B after corrupt all the elves failed but I like this Show's adaptation change to make each batch kind of separate for different races because we get to see how the craftings are really the result of syron's increasing layers of manipulation on cell bmore that all softy and basically syron's cunning appeal to cell bimor pride and to his Artistry Duran follows the Ring's whisper to dig through a foundation wall but he says this notory we need is light in a past episode this season we

saw how that light beaming from the outside from the direction of Mordor toward kazad Doom to show how even light can be a deceptive element and can make you think that you don't need to breathe King Duran says pity those who dwell above slaves to the Sun to ceaseless rhythm of waking and sleep it's such an interesting way to judge races like the elves and humans and even the harfoot who set the course of their lives to the cycle of the Sun and to the Stars it's almost like a disc to elon's father right arendal

who is like currently bringing Stars across the sky that's like his job now in oron narvi unveils the famous doors of Duren these look pretty similar to the ones that lead to the minds of Moria in Fellowship of the Ring just different enough to avoid any kind of like legal issues with what the show is allowed to adapt from tolken estate in the show they say the door is guarded by a password known only to friends which of course is a reference to the riddle on the doors of Duran that reads speak friend and enter

to which the answer is melon or friend and cerin anatar siron tries to convince kellor to make rings for men and in this conversation he says this I fear numor more than any land in Middle Earth H those familiar with the lore know what sauron's future with numor really holds this line also links to a line from The Two Towers where Gandalf tells Aragorn that Sauron fear him because he's the heir of numor and a growing symbol as a leader of men anatar mentions a few human Heroes there are always some who rise forth and

shine aend sound of better here yes aend our old friend who we just mentioned the first hero tolken created for the universe he's half elf not fully human elon's father it's just kind of interesting that the first one he mentions is an example of someone who's not even like just purely human hero arendal helped to end the war of Wrath in the first age and was faded to travel the sea for eternity with one of the similes tour is aend Deal's human father and became one of the few humans to be granted Immortal Life in

valanor Baron is one of the few humans that had a relationship with an elf along with t and later on Aragorn of course with of course Liv Tyler but Baron stole a simil from moro's crown and his actions inspired further Rebellion against morgoth he too would later be given a second life in valanor siron has a personal history with Baron as he actually captured him at one point and killed his companion thin rod so he's sort of saying we find someone as good as this guy who I captured previously he's implying that cellb rimbor can

help create a whole new age of human Heroes who will be partners with elves Anar Sauron says that from numor to Rune they must identify nine human ring bearers and I just like this detail because you know the nine ring rates were derived from both new andorians and from easterlings and these are the suspects that we're going to have to keep an eye on in this series any kind of young [ __ ] from either numor or from run is probably going to be one of these guys plus Theo we think now we should note

that oron is home to the Noor elves these are the elves that never went West to live in valanor and so they were never fully at peace in their hearts so when saon gave them the idea that they could create rings of power to bring the light of valanor to them it was just a very novel idea Kell bmore initially refuses to craft rings for men somewhat out of snobbery but anatar manipulates him the way he can manipulate any kind of workaholic artist oh no problem I'll do it and then I'll do a really bad

job with it so that you can't help but take over later in numor ferzon points out the White Tower of arasa the gateway to the undying lands so arasa was an island initially used by the Valar to BU the El from Middle Earth to valanor however the island later became parked off the coast of valanor and was just barely visible from newor fzone who is jealous of the elves and Mortal Souls thinks the tower is taunting him as the elves forbade the people of numor to sail west of Elanor farone tells his son Kem that

he would come to Ill ends but makes him help out with decommissioning the seag guard that are loyal to Mel before he will tell him what his mother said would happen to him it's a lot like a sealer Kem is also motivated by the loss of his mother and really the fear of his own fate my money is definitely on Kem being one of those ass whole human ring bearers who will become ring rates he's just a dick and you know someone's got to be the ring rates Ellen speaks to the deposed Miel who places

her hand on Ellen's chest throughout the scene to feel his heartbeat he tells her what the paler showed him when he touched it in the past episode riding away from the city as he will have to flee by the end of the season Muriel realizes it didn't show him her nightmarish vision of token's Great Wave swallowing numor so she thinks it could be a sign important that she shouldn't be Queen and then hey maybe that fate was averted ultimately with a paler all roads lead to saon kimman and aarian force the seag guard loyal to

the queen regent to resign and we get kind of a Dead Poet Society O Captain my Captain moment while they all salute ellend and Kem freakishly snaps at everyone to stop kemin also flashes a bit of jealousy when aaran grabs valon's arm oh that arm in Lon Gil gallad has another vision and in it we see an explosion sending chunks of rock line fish gasping for breath these images come back in episode 7 when the orc Army dams the river around a regon we see syron's Crown which originally was morgoth's Crown before it was reor

and we see a flaming figure which I think could be sauron's true form as described by mirania later when she puts on the ring and goes into the Unseen World daa prunes the tree that was gifted to this married couple by elron the light from the king's hole in the foundation wall reach this tree but it doesn't look any healthier because light is not always good like Kell bimor daa is another artist who honed her craft over decades and her discipline causes her to distrust these shortcuts that the Rings provide she and Prince Duran go

tune in Crystal Shopping and we learn the King has raised the taxes she drops Crystal and it rolls beard Al was a Valor known as the Smith of the Valar and appreciated especially by the dwarves this is kind of a variant of the expression uden's beard daa Hears A growling in the distance of course the bog who we'll see in episode 8 and its return frequency causes the water in this Cavern Pond to Ripple upward I don't think this is the same Pond that Gandalf and the bog fall into at the beginning of Two Towers

but I assume it could be connected through some linked Waterway King dur the thiri invites emissaries from the other Dwarven kingdoms offering the other rings for half of their treasure and he tells narvi you should be deling much deeper it kind of sets up San's line in Fellowship the dwarves delved too greedily and Too Deep you know what they awoke in the darkness of khazard doom shadow and Flame in Aon Kell rimbor finds mirania wearing a ring and she describes her experience from The Unseen World it was tall and its skin was made made of

flames I saw its eyes pitiless and eternal she's obviously describing sauron's True Form but only at the mention of his eyes does he cut her off he's like the eye of me is the most important part of me she says it's been here among us all along of course describing sauron's disguise as how br/ anatar but she might also be referring to the fact that saon was really alive before the creation of this universe as one of the Lesser myar created by alvatar as spirits to begin the world these imperfect Rings might be the many

lesser rings that were forged in the process of creating the rings of power mentioned by Gandalf in the fellowship text siron would later collect many of these lesser Rings though many were just lost and I just like the detail that we get to see a lot of these lesser Rings being created and just tossed in a scrap pile but I think merania seing this form this true form of siron is why he forces Kell rimbor to kill her in the most Grizzly death of the series in episode 7 for now he sets her at ease

by saying the fire she saw was Kell bribor true form and then compliments her by comparing her to the likeness of lady gadriel back in numor a priest for the faithful says until we meet again in the far Green Country under a swift Sunrise ah this quote comes from the Return of the King text when froto sees valanor for the first time and it's described as a far Green Country after Swift sunrise for the films Peter Jackson and foran Philippa reassigned this quote to Gandalf in that great moment with Pippen and Gondor gray rain curtain

this world rolls back and all turns to S glass and then you see it white Shores and Beyond a far Green Country into a swift sunrise and yes it's always been curious to me that Gandalf would even know what that Journey would look like presumably it's just a process that elron and gladel might have shared with him based off of their knowledge of the lore but you know he is also a wizard he might just have some Divine Insight when he says that to pipin but I've always loved this quote it's such a beautiful sentiment

for any seaf fairing Captain who just might find themselves wandering or wandering at Sea and I just love that they repurpose this as a prayer the shells that they remember placed upside down on the grave of tarp paler they now turned face up to form floating candles as just a prayer for Hope but kemman ruins it he plans to pave over this Shrine for what a new Aqueduct he says Ah Aqueduct what aelder and parar bragged about as being a technological Marvel of numor that he couldn't wait to get back to is now really just

a completely unnecessary destructive force that really recalls the way Roman aqueducts and Lead poisoned water that They Carried helped contribute to to the fall of Rome this poor priest wants to save the statue of this weeping figure I said this was n before and I think that's even more the case in this scene Kevin drops it and smashes it on purpose suggesting the souls that Nana was weeping for will be lost which in Ellen Deal's mind would include his late wife and a seeler who he still thinks is dead Vandal defends Ellen's armor with a

nasty fight with Kem and Kem tries to drown him I don't know how he overwhelmed those arms but valandil gets to his feet and he breaks kem's arm M A Arian ain't grabbing that affectionately but does not kill him at Ellen Deal's orders and yet stabby stabby stab kemman gets a punk stab not unlike the punk unhealable wound one of the Ring race gives Frodo at weathertop in Fellowship Anar siron convinces Kell bmore that the problems with the dwarfen Rings came from the fact that they were crafted under the cloak of deception as Gil galled

did not sanction them and Kell bimor wrote that the forge was inactive so the successful appeal to finally get Kell bmore to craft the nine is not concerned for human suffering but as a bit of personal shame to the artist that craftsmanship done with dishonesty leads to a flawed product so the overall project is incomplete okay next season 2 episode 6 where is he a Deere finds a few Orcs complaining about Adar making them chase a ghost I like any moment that give some more grouchy Nuance to the Orcs which sets them up to Mutiny

Adar by The Season's end even if that Mutiny is really in support of that very ghost we transition from the Orcs map of oron to the city's Tower kellor says why did you still Define me you who live not Breeze not possess not mind nor will what pride is woven in your inmost self that you resist my hand I think there's a bit of Shakespearean I Amic Rhythm there ye rings of men why do you still defy me you who live not breathe not possess not mind nor will and of course cell bimor is referring

to the unwieldy stubbornness of men themselves he tosses the ring on the scrap pile beside a Mouse a mouse that he will later use to deduce the reality Loop that Sauron puts him in and Asar saon addresses Kell bmo's workers inside the Statue of fanor Kell bmb's grandfather holding one of the similes he crafted so that means every day Kell bribor goes outside this grandson has to stand in the shadow of his far more accomplished grandfather saon will use this later in the episode best F best yourself so an elf Soldier returns dead scarred with

Kurth runes Kur is a character system that tolken invented originally used by elves speaking in cerin but later replaced by the written language of tanguar which is better known as the beautiful Elvish script these runes seem to spell out Manas inir which I assume is black speech for the title of this episode which siron says here what did it say where is he now if it isn't black speech that would mean Adar carve these words in the chest specifically for Sauron so I'm wondering why would he say where is he I think Sauron might have

actually changed exactly what was said when translating it for mdia like it really could have been where are you or I see you or [ __ ] you Sauron I know you're cosplaying is a pretty boy God to trick those elves and siron just didn't want mirania to suspect him oh what a dinner Adar tells gadriel that her obsession with finding siron has wormed its way inside her mind his eye BS a hole and the rest of him slithers in for a while he even makes you believe that his power has become yours ah we

get a reference to the eye of Sauron and I like how this scene conceives of the eye as the abstract concept that tolken conceived it as as opposed to the physical fiery eye at top of the tower that Peter Jackson made it out to be nothing wrong with that visual I freaking love it it was awesome looking but tolken really wrote of the eye closer to how Adar describes it here it's like a a concept vibe that sirron is always looking at you they also Express syron's influence in terms of color here an ocean of

color against which everything else feels forever there after a dull gray ah we might be getting a glimpse into the Unseen World a way for our minds to process overwhelming new perception we're also reminded of that gray rain curtain followed Follow by a Green Country under Swift Sunrise our mortal world even with all its vibrancy is really just considered gray in comparison to what lies beyond our Event Horizon gadriel says what help could you possibly provide orc or ah at our correct Galadriel on aruk again and notice that gadriel will use aruk for the rest

of the season she's capable of learning aruk is really the species self-referential term while in the third age Uruk Kai referred to the stronger form that was specifically bred by sauman Adar says that there are many stories about morgoth's Crown but that siron reir it to fit himself in the original lore morgoth's Crown was reforged into a collar around his neck that the chains were fixed to but Peter Jackson's team designed sauron's Crown to look like John how's paintings a Mor Go's pointed Crown so this whole many stories line is kind of a meta wink

to those adaptations at our short-term alliance with glad rail is one of the most interesting moves on the series the Orcs are his children and he doesn't want his family following a manipulative master who views them as disposable and he knows that the elves Forge in Aron is like the worst weapon in the wrong hands so he's like I got to destroy this in his eyes he's really targeting like a Manhattan Project Los Alamos site he remembers what Pandora's Box looked like open to The Sims in the previous age and he doesn't want another one

open the rings of power as a series is just such a good story about what happens when the same people fail to apply historical lessons just out of Pride or being too differential or just Paralyzed by fear in the face of obvious evil Ellen deal finds himself in a kind of Ard Stark Game of Thrones scenario forced to confess treason and bend the knee while his s Stark type daughter watches along but Ellen deal ends his confession more like Tyrion Lannister during his trial in season 4 but because this is rings of power and not

Game of Thrones endal is not bloodily executed right then and there also because you know he's got important stuff to do later on in history like Tyrion he it's decided the gods will decide his Fate In this case a sea creature and like Tyrion with a champion but that you know Champion doesn't get his head imploded by the mountain on to Gandalf as we will now officially call him with the knowledge of the reveal from the finale episode The speculation in the first half of this video oh so cute but it was recorded before I

saw the finale episode but Clues were pretty obvious Gandalf has a nightmare vision of the events of the finale the dark Wizard's destruction of the store Village in episode 8 events that will give him his staff even in this Vision as the boulders fall Beyond them you can see the specific constellation this wizard has been seeking Tom badil says the secret fire Whispers to us the secret fire is the Heavenly power of the creation of alvatar it's all in the inor all that fire is in the inor including the Wizards in Fellowship gandf tells a

bog that he was the wielder of the flame of Anor Tom badil tells gandf that he has to choose between following his path to recover his power or saving his friends this is kind of a classic step in the hero's journey like the hero kind of just has to go off and hang out with a weirdo for a bit Luke Skywalker meeting The Eccentric wise creature Yoda on DEA and Empire Luke wants to save Han and Leia but Yoda says if he leaves he'll never finish his training to become a Jedi but by the end

of the season we learned that Tom badell really wanted Gand off to save his friends all along because that rescue is what led to him acquiring his Gand or you know I guess his magic stick his lightsaber it's all the same thing metaphorically with Nori Gund calls her home a smil which is The Hobbit word for Hobbit Hole toen based that word on an Old English word smile which means a burrow or a place to creep into and I'm betting that's where smeagle came from as well as obviously Gollum was The Hobbit smeagle before he

was Gollum go says that I've been tending to that tree since I was big enough to balance a rake and we learned that that tree is where her soulmate is buried and where she will be buried making it another sacred tree let's go this of course will produce the broken branch that will form gandal staff and looking at the shot I kind of feel like it's that Highlights magazine hidden picture where you're just like looking at everything to be like oh it's kind of in that shape so I think the gond is that one like

I kind of feel like the knob at the end of that one is Knob that you could stuff a pipe into for safekeeping that's like my favorite detail about a gandal staff he like can stuff his pipe into it and just like keep his pipe right there for him to be like oh what no I'm good I'm good Tom Bombadil says many that die deserve life some that live deserve death who are you to give it to them ah yes one of the famous Gandalf quotes from Fellowship the pity of Bilbo passage TW pity that

stayed Bilbo's hand a passage about how you never know what sparing a single life can do to alter the fate of even creatur seemingly most deserving of death we see how this gandan wisdom now was just rooted an old Tom Bombadil an unknowingly ancient spirit and kazad doom the gold horde that SM will later rub his old belly up on begins to be piled up anatar saon arrives to offer timber for Meal which Timber would require trees my friend precious trees to be cut down fangorn Style and we met some friendly ants earlier in the

season who would have a word with that Duran the Elder and younger tell this guy to f off and he just kind of looks in the fires of the nearby torch I think he's remembering the bow Rog that is below this Kingdom and kind of just like tapping on his door but notice how he smartly takes no for an answer Sauron is always willing to take the L in the short term because it leaves the window of opportunity open for a longer term Victory daa takes an active stand against during the third's refusal to take

off the ring and to keep Delvin including her summoning of bats it's a fun bit of parallelism with the men of numor blowing the horns to summon the sea Worm but when you summon fauna to serve you you have to be prepared for their neutrality or for it to go against you back in numor that's what we see mirel volunteers his tribute for Ellen Deal's place in the trial of the seaw worm and sucked down into the pool by this Kraken like creature Muriel become something of an Andromeda on the Rocks figure scapegoated to face

the Wrath of the sea but in Muriel's case her apocalyptic Great Wave dread Now tips in her favor the nudging of the Sea on the season initially comes off as a force of good but since it places all of numor on its doomed path I just don't trust the waves I don't trust the light I only trust the trees farzon goes on to use the paler and sees Mount Doom and hbr whom he met last season anytime they use a paler I love this visual effect of the cracking of reality itself that feels like an

Abrupt version of the gray rain curtain gently rolling back something closer to the visual of Duran the third cracking the foundation wall to get exposed to a vibrant light that you're not really meant to have access to the siege of oron begins and it's a bit different from the lore for one siron was not in the city by the time the siege started but rather was leading it and anatar had been found out 100 years before The Siege but is just one of many examples of the timeline being condensed also the one ring was crafted

by this point in the lore however parts of it are very accurate for instance in the unfinished Tales tolken wrote that Kell bribor makes his last stand on the steps of the juwel Smith's Guild House similarly in this show Kell bmo's Final Stand in episode 8 is exactly in the spot sirron uses his illusion magic to make Kell brbor see just a peaceful Oregon and when Kell brbor goes back inside the spell ends and we stay on this shot of Charlie Vickers as we realize that we are in the midst of chaos and it changes

from day to night and I ini assume VFX were involved in this but no no no you can see in the BTS footage where they actually did this transition practically with things like Shifting the lighting the Torches now igniting off camera and swapping out different extras all while the camera was turned away from that part of the set it's so cool how they pulled this off and we get another incredible shot as we Glide from sauron's gaze over the battlements over to the tree line across the river where we see adar's forces being amassed gadrail

clutches her rings and we end with the Fireballs Gliding Over into a regon and blinding us and the final frame fire consumes us the fire that you know saon was looking at in Kaza Doom the same light that he's using to Blind all of these characters to the obvious he is now blinding us we're Blinded By the Light season 2 episode 7 doomed to die a title coming from The Ring verse poem on the One Ring nine for Mortal men doomed to die and those are the first spoken words of this episode by Kell rimbor

nine for Mortal men but it's not only mortal men who are doomed most of these characters are doomed as the forging of these Rings and The Siege outside will only really lead to one place these opening shots represent a false piece the eye of the storm are really the eye of the Sauron you could say with unnaturally vibrant colors and blinding light shot like a folders commercial as cellor sips his morning drink and Scoops out some coffee bean esque meal to roast his brew and when kellmore seals one of these bands a flash of white

blinds us to Signal an evil little kiss from the Mayar you even kind of hear a siren choir song vocals of the irer singing behind it Kell rimbor has been using Thor's hammer in his work this is a tool his grandfather used to craft the Sims but notices a ruby is missing from the handle and I love that a missing Jewel from its setting is really the first glitch of this Matrix that he notices because it recalls one of Thor's Jewels The samel Pride from the crown of morgoth and while tugging at this suspicious he

finds Mr Mouse who crawls past and then reaches up a few times before just continuing on his cycle and then he sees his true reflection in the mirror it's a kind of Mirror Mirror On The wall/ Picture of Dorian Gray type of reveal this episode even using a Crossing Mouse as the reveal of this Loop recalls the black cat glitch in The Matrix as well as Truman Burbank in The Truman Show noticing the passing cars and pedestrians in their Loop or even really the playback Loop of the bus footage in speed the fact that it

is a mouse that breaks the cycle also recalls the ever famous Avengers endgame rat that freed Scott Lang from the quantum Realm by extension save the universe Kell bmore says that he has been in the state for weeks weeks I'm reminded of the classic fables like The Sorcerer's Apprentice of using magical shortcuts to be able to toil your way through the night or if you love musical like I do the story of scho the tailor of kovich from Jason Robert Browns The Last 5 Years the tailor who got his wish granted to freeze time during

a night and finally be able to work his Artistry free from distraction or exhaustion but the magic of meddling with time like this always incurs a cost Sauron strolls out on the oron battlements unworried about the reigning assault like freaking Gus Fring stepping out in a sniper fire Sauron lies to say Kell rimbor has cowardly ordered no Counterattack and he takes command now telling mdia when the time comes I will see to it that you are dearly rewarded ah you can tell he's already planning on sacrificing her to frame kellmore the orc Army dams the

river now in season 1 the southlanders redirected water flow to ca Mount Doom to explode back into its active volcano State once again The Great Wave always spells Doom for characters doesn't it elron appeals to Duren and diesa for Aid and he finds that they've been maintaining the tree that he gave them so you know he knows that there's still hope from his old friend and Duran calls Elon tidal haired referring to the curls of his hair but also recalling that elron descends from the seaf fairing arendal meanwhile adar's Rooks charge across the muddy riverbed

it's truly a brutal War of Attrition we're calling Helms Deep from Two Towers and we stly stay grounded in a character point of view in this case of mdia so that the editing toggles between a wide scale of the battle with all these extras and then these little anecdotal inserts in which mardani would just notice the Orcs plowing ah head despite arrows going into their legs the way Kell ribor says wait for it noticing the path of the mouse is exactly how Truman tells his wife to wait for the passing cars in The Truman Show

he sounds crazy but you know this guy's actually totally been redpilled anatar slson reveals this trickery I am the one keeping the Storm at Bay balancing the very sun above your head all to give you this one chance to prove your worth ah manipulation of sunlight recalls King Duran bringing the sun to us to break free of the cycles of day and night but really controlling nature like this is not ever good it's KB bro's grandfather's feanor's Hammer that breaks the window glass and finally reveals the battlecries from the outside whereas the paler shattered reality

from its greyness to color this shatters in the opposite direction from artificial Technicolor on the inside to the gray muddy reality outside in another amazingly smooth transition Kell bbor staggers out upon the balcony unblemished initially and then the camera pans away from him to show the destruction down below and then in the same shot we pan back to cellb rimbor and he is dirty and bloody now and we follow him back into his Workshop to reveal it is a smoldering mess Kell brbor realizes that the methil he had been using to form the nine are

actually some of sauron's black goo that he molded into his human how brand form in the season 2 premiere so this liquid on like Kell bmo's fingers is like this guy but if you think about this in the context of the creation of the nine rings for men it would suggest that they were not crafted from methal but rather just from sauron's very blood which is pretty gnarly and it explains why the nine kings were more directly influenced by saon and devolved into the nas School Kell bmore feeling shaken from having syron's goo on his

fingers wanders outside to see a dog sadly sniffing at its dead owner we do thankfully see this pup doing okay in the finale in Rivendell so this dog's going to be fine we see how the elves cultural upbringing of associating clean Pol Beauty as truth blinds mdon and the others when it comes to trusting Anar saon versus Kell bribor like melmor comes off as his bloody lunatic graving about candles and Mr Mouse he just can't be trusted over this calm clean Angelic ideal who told mdia that she reminded him of gadriel Sauron raises his palm

to deceive them with red blood a kind of Christ Stigmata pose painted himself as just a sacrificial scapegoat an ultimate hero but with a flick of the same hand Saron uses a residual goo that was on calor's fingers to PP at that hand to throw poor mdia off the Battlement within seconds an orc is like hey and decapitates her for anyone who gripes that the rings of power is too soft to be high fantasy in their minds just know that HBO and Game of Thrones and House of the dragon have deceived you into thinking all

high fantasy must be washed with constant excessive violence and sex and I have to say that this death right here breaks our hearts in just the right way without being too excessive to make it more effective dramatically than most of the deaths that happen in like the latter seasons of Game of Thrones and all the deaths we've seen in House of the Dragon he's a certainly felt crer and more dramatically Justified than Cersei killing mande in a similar way in the penultimate episode of Game of Thrones final season it hurts I hate to see Mia

go through that but like this is what it should be elron leads the Elvis Cavalry with Gil gallad at his side and he shouts death to our foes and Cinder in there's a great overhead shot where the elves charge in like an arrow carrying the sunlight across the battlefield into the shadow where the Line Of Orcs are mud kicks up on the camera as we're following the Gallup feels great but then Adar un veils the captive Galadriel blood drawn from her throat and elron commands a halt which is impressive training for all these horses and

Riders and elon's ability to project his voice that all these Riders and horses just stop at once Adar tells elron to trust him to wipe out Sauron and all of Aon that's now under sauron's control you have the beauty of your forother Milan of the Val if even a fragment of her wisdom is in your veins you must know you cannot defeat me in battle so melon the Maya was an I knew of the race of the Meer of yavana so similar to Duran's disc of tidal hair elron is facing less glamorous races mocking the

Elvin Beauty as a detriment because those who focus on finery and scripture and wisdom and history should know what a coin toss the muddy reality of War truly is ELR and gladel smooch so Robert Aro was pretty hesitant to film the scene however after he discussed it with morph and Clark the two actors went forward with it from their perspective the kiss is Just entirely strategic you know to pass along this class for glad raal to pick the lock it's not meant to imply a romance between them but Morphin Clark also said that she thought

this kiss might be more commonly seen as platonic to elves that being said the actors and producers knew what they were doing as Aro said in an interview that the kiss was intended to be controversial now in the lore elron will go on to marry galadriel's daughter calabrian but Cibrian was born at the start of the second age but in rings of power calborn galadriel's husband has been completely missing since the first age but the producers I believe have asked for patience that he's like somewhere in this world El R tells V heel and cinderance

of the Orcs can understand we are reminded of how Gandalf will tell Aragorn that he would arrive at first light with reinforcements in the Battle of Helms Deep into two towers so this episode really uses our common understanding of Helms Deep from Peter Jackson's film to set us up to feel hope at the end of it really uses that to manipulate us to leave us in such a state of despair as we feel doomed to die and a big Beach Prince Duren says that saon stole the seven smithing secrets from our forbearers now the seven

smithing Secrets aren't really known from lore but I think it's a reference to Al the respected Smith of the Valar blasphemed by daa earlier this season who in the first stage Sauron the Maya was trying to Curry favor with so describing Sauron in this particular way would really be an effective way for Duran to Rally the dwarves to war the orc zor kills elon's horse God no and Elon kills him with one of the most brutal deaths pinning him to the rocks in the Catapult and and then saying die in Cinder in and launching him

so that his body smacks against the walls of regon there's a really interesting moment where gadriel in hooded disguise tries to sneak out of their Aro camp and stumbles upon an aruk funeral p as Adar says this helps gadel on her path towards respecting uks as as their own Nuance species and connects to the finale episode title flame and Shadow Sauron says that he's making Kell rimbor suffer the way morgoth tortured him and that it was a game between them a contest of strength what morgoth sought to destroy he says Sauron sought to perfect not

only does this give us context of the cleare eyed Madness and inhumanity that drives Sauron it thematically resonates with what we were talking about with Adar that sometimes the most virtuous thing to do is to just destroy something because perfecting something can just lead to a cycle of Never Satisfied meddling and ultimately suffering involved in that Perfection process Adar is not wrong that destroying a regon is better for Middle Earth overall than allowing the elves and now Sauron to use this Forge to perfect weapons of mass destruction and actually we'll see in the final episode

how Poppy's quoting of burough in episode 8 completes this argument in a really beautiful way Sauron says that the difference between himself and Kell rimbor is that Kell rimbor chose to partake in the suffering that he gave into the Folly of the Craftsman and pursuit of beauty even when that cost a sacrifice cellb rimbor tries to melt the nine rings in the Forge but later learns that they cannot be melted because they don't retain heat like other metal does remember gandal telling Frodo that the one ring was quite cool which is why they had to

take the one ring all the way to the fires of Mount Doom to destroy it Kell rimbor has to use a metal press that we saw earlier to cut off his thumb to escape the cuffs remembering what Sauron said about the torture between morgoth and Sauron was a test to see whose will was mightier gadriel finds cellb rimbor and both admit that they willingly blinded themselves to what saon was offering Kimber leaves gadriel with an important message light endures and is mightier than strength for in its presence all Darkness must flee this underscores how important

gad's gift to Frodo will be in the third age the light of irandil our most beloved star be a light for you in Dark Places when all other lights go out and Kell bmbo says goodbye with this which is a quenya word meaning farewell elron runs into the female elf rienne who joined elron and glad dril's group back in episode 4 who says that she has enough arrows to do her part but notice she seems to be out of arrows in her quiver I think she knows that she's going to get plugged with orc arrows

and then she Yanks one of these out and lights it on fire and ignites a pitch to blow it all up this leads to the unleashing of the Hill troll damrock who's voiced by Benjamin Walker and according to the show's designers they say he based visually on Mike man trout in Breaking Bad which feels kind of mean to the actor Jonathan Banks but when he comes out of the tree line notice he kicks the Catapult really for no reason just sending its flaming Boulders prematurely flying off in another Direction but this is actually smart visually

for the VFX artist because it allows light from the fire to illuminate his form so that we can see it from a distance exactly how big he is cell were tries to arrest Sauron but Sauron mind controls a soldier saying you think it was only you who put yourself in my power now in lore saon aims to use the Rings to control the minds of the elves but here it seems as though anyone who has willingly submitted themselves to sauron's Authority in whatever form He took is kind of a victim to this sort of influence

damrod trudges forward crushing one elf into the mud biting the head off of an orc slapping another one and even setting one corpse of Blaze and kind of like bowling It Forward he's just a big old stinker Aon Deere and elron use the ravager to slam deod in the gut probably breaking some ribs but in Anger he slams it further against the wall cracking it which you know the Orcs will take advantage of later G gallad rides up and slashes his leg with a spear Gil galled spear is actually named OS and he's going to

use it later in the war of the last Alliance together they're able to bring down damrod as iron deer tackles them to the ground it'll be this crew plus gladel whom we end the season with overlooking the realm that will become rivendel but now with the Elven numbers depleted the sun rises as it did as the dawn crept up on Helm's Deep that morning but hope is dashed as vill rides up with an arrow in his shoulder to report that Duran's forces are not coming elron cannot accept this Duran will come d will come aand

Deere sparts Adar but definitely Dodges an Hero at Point Blake range which is awesome Adar stabs aand Deere with what seemed like a deadly blow but as he walks away notice that arer keeps moving a little bit so I guess it's the show's way of saying ah we don't see the light go out of his eyes so no death the Orcs breach the walls of regon elron accepting his fate is awoken from his fug state with the sound of a sword but not a strike a sheathing because Adar is here not to kill him but

to humiliate him he speaks in Cinder in my I've got a sweee so rumil was a wise Lore Master of the Noor who lived in binor the one thing Adar said Elon had over him knowledge of scripture and history and philosophy Adar is throwing back in his face now this episode ends with Adar holding Nya by its chain and the focus shifts from his face to the ring in some ways it's a visual inverse from the opening shot of episode 5 when we shifted from an extreme closeup of the Ring of Thor to King Duran

the third now it's from Adar to the ring Nya and onto the finale episode season 2 episode eight Shadow and Flame Shadow and Flame are the words we hear from Saron in the quote from fellowship that we brought up before a reference to the bow Rog Duran's Bane King durran uses his own miniature rature to break through the cave wall on the other side is this Cavern full of veins of methal created as we saw in Gil gall's story in season one the song of the roots of he G by the bolt of lightning striking

the tree fought over by an elf and the bow Rog who then poured their respective magic into it the bow Rog Rises his whip snapping upward from the depths and grasping the king just as it does to Gandalf in Fellowship the bowo is one of the myar which means that only its physical form can be destroyed and the lore Duran's Bane isn't supposed to be woken until well into the third age it's supposed to get its name by killing a future Duran not during the third here but it makes me worried about future Duran I'll

just say that King Duran removes the ring and we see that all his fiddling with gold has made his fingernails look pretty gold but now he comes to his senses correcting his son who had thought his father would lift his hand a little bit to let the younger get close to winning but he said something else was happening I never let you lift your hand you is you just you getting stronger and I have to say here as someone who in the past year both became a father to a son and lost my own father

I just kind of need to take a second with this line there's you know the one interpretation that I mentioned before that during the Elder might have had that kind of classic aggro dad anxiety oh no my son's going to overpower me and he now just has to learn the lesson of we are what they grow Beyond right but I think there's another interpretation like maybe during the Elder truly did lift his hand and the way you know as a dad you'll often do to make your kid feel super strong because it's not about being

super strong it's about feeling super strong and maybe just In This Moment during the Elder tells his son that he was getting stronger because he wants his son to feel strong when he's gone and to believe that he always had that strength the truth I think is that we never really know how strong our dads are or were because this is also a game they played with their Dads you know but they probably wondered about that too but throughout every generation that contest of strength is ultimately an expression of love and yeah I'm fully aware

that it's a little silly to get this raw over characters in ridiculous costumes with their fake beards and their prosthetic noses but you know also sometimes these kind of over-the-top costumes are where our true selves can be expressed so moving on Gandalf meets the dark wizard manway promised you would come so manway is the king of the Valar and brother to melor aka morgoth the dark wizard confirms that he and Gandalf are both eori and that there are five of them and he says that Gandalf convinced him to come to Middle Earth because they needed

to fight siron together it implies that there's some history shared between these characters now in the lore the fivey star are Gandalf the gry syon the white ragas the brown and the two blue Wizards alatar and palando the dark wizard calls Gandalf old friend which of course is something Saron would often call gandol but the showrunners JD and Patrick have for now confirmed to Vanity Fair that the dark wizard is not Saron now if he is telling the truth about being an istar himself that could suggest that he might be one of the blue Wizards

alatar or palando I just kind of feel like The Vibes are totally pointing to on and it's going to be annoying if these showrunners are lying in these interviews the lore has multiple takes on when the aori came to Middle Earth it's generally accepted that they came in the third age but in the peoples of Middle Earth tolken played with the idea that the blue Wizards at least came in the second age saying they must have had very great influence on the history of the second and third age and weakening and disarray the forces of

the East interestingly in a video released by Amazon a tolking scholar says that there's really no such thing as Canon when it comes to his writings as his ideas were constantly evolving and he would often rewrite and change details about the history of the world the dark wizard tells gandal to look past your name your staff which we could also look at as a clue coming from the dark wizard that this guy's going to be able to dered his name from his staff is gond the easterling hunter that we now know it's named Brank says

this my people were once Kings wizard ah I feel like Brank is another solid nazul suspect the dark wizard smashes the store Village and Gandalf saves his friends by levitating these rocks and we transition from the stars of the constellation to the tree nimlock in numor as a sun from the West is Illuminating the leaves making it look a lot like T perion the tree that nimloth was meant to be an embodiment of suggesting that the light of gandal stars could be coming from the same source and that Source being The Valor pazon claims some

[ __ ] to all these faithful leaders that Muriel's miraculous survival from the seaw worm must have been a trick that she pulled from Saron which is a pretty big stretch based on faron's Vision in the paler so they use this to banish the faithful from numor and notice that now the leaves of nimloth break off the branches and Float past the statue of arendal in the harbor showing how far this kingdom is drifting from the protection of the Valar Muriel gives eleno naril the White Flame of course the sword that will one day be

broken and used by elen's son is shelder to sever sauron's fingers and free the One Ring the way elenil un sheaths it and flourishes the blade between him and muel it's totally a parallel to the way Aragorn waves anduril the sword that the broken shards of naril will be reforged into when elron gives it to Aragorn and Return of the King now from here there's a 90c tracking shot in Aon following the bro and the invading Orcs to the few elves remaining to defend it including this awesome guy who badass Le slides down the rooftop

and then immediately gets killed and then finally into the courtyard where gladel leads a small group of women into the City and even Morphin Clark's stunt there is just you know a little basic but I think it's just because they had to time it perfectly with the way the camera was moving and they didn't want to do anything too complicated saon savagely fires arrows into Kell Bimbo's broken body siron references Galene which was an Elven City that fell during the first age when moro's forces learned of its location and destroyed at hell of bimor bitterly

taunt saon for soon I shall go to the shores of the morning born hence by a wind that you can never follow as a Mayar rejected by the Valar and not among the chosen race of the elves one of sauron's sorest points of Envy was being denied entry to valanor so Kell bribor is now just trying to humiliate this guy for dressing in the form of an Elven Angelic Spirit Kell bribor promises the rings of power shall destroy you one of alone shall prove your utter ruin so of course the 19 rings and the One

Ring will become both siren's Victory and his defeat and then his return to power and then his final eradication but we are reminded of the path that sirron could have taken back in the season 2 premiere after he clawed his way back into life choosing treachery and ambition and bloodshed wasn't the only path for him Sauron Spears Kell rimbor and raises him up against the column this comes from token's description of Kell rm's Death In His notes after refusing to give the location of the Rings his body was riddled with arrows and then paraded around

on a pole by sir's Army as a warning to the other elves but the way Kell rimor pronounces saon Lord of the Rings it almost reads like Kell rimbor getting the last laugh as in a way he's saying being a Lord of the Rings is all that he will ever be master of so camon Ares in polar gear and immediately starts pinpointing homes to tear down and to build a stupid Watchtower this dude loves bulldozing Kem is shocked to see a silder still alive because with Ellen on the Lucid naril the line is still very

unbroken and I love this this little moment I never gave up hope even when everyone said there were no survivors left there wouldn't be if not for baric oh baric he does this bashful little snuff like oh I didn't do that much despite the fact that you fought a whole bunch of [ __ ] spiders baric take a moment to run a Victory lap I also really really wanted Kim to be like uh is baric the name of the horse or the weird ass Ram standing in front of him I really just think they frame

this awkwardly with the ram because I think baric the horse might have been VFX into the shot because that specific gesture might have just been too hard to get in the crowd shot here Kem Demands a regular allotment of Timber to build ferzon Armada certain that won't be a problem for you after all they in the trees have we learned nothing from the ants I'm really looking forward to one of those ants picking Kem out of his feet Roots gadrail is brought before Adar wearing Nya has restored his appearance to handsome Elvish features it seems

like every time we see Adar with gladel they're shot with these extreme Dutch angles showing all the vertical lines in the shot boded strongly toward each other and might be showing how these two are distant points both bent toward one mutual end Adar says that when he was an elf He was known by another name that he cannot remember and that Adar was a name he earned setting up an interesting mystery of what adar's Elvin name was before all this he removes the ring and he hands it to gadriel and gradually his gray skin just

creeps across his face Adar son is brought back to him but Adar is Mutiny in the same fashion that Adar did to saon and the forward W in the season premiere Gil galad and elron are taken to the oron Courtyard to see feanor's Statue torn down which was also from the vision earlier this season the Orcs torch every every scroll from Kell rm's works and while from elon's point of view this amounts to a burning of the Library of Alexandria the sacred Jedi txt the loss of centuries of wisdom in truth these Orcs were following

adar's orders to undo the Manhattan Project essentially arguably Sauron wouldn't want the forge and the research to survive so that no other Rings could be forged to contest the 19 that have been made already but the fact that after this he will go to Mount Doom to forge the 20th one ring in secret tells us that he probably would have preferred to kept Kell rimbor research to build on gadriel Duel Sauron who fights her both with a sword and with morgoth's crown but to find the light we must first touch the darkness he is quoting

galadriel's brother finrod in the line that he told her in the prologue of the series back in season 1 sometimes we cannot know until we have touched the darkness this just shows how in all these lines saon is totally in her head and it's because she has let him warm his way into her brain as she was warned by Adar earlier this season next he conjures himself in his how brand form the form gadriel saw in her vision back in episode 4 fighting at your side I felt if I could just hold on to that

feeling and that is another line how said to her back in season one fighting at your side I I felt if I could just hold on to that feeling how then passes behind a rock and comes out the other side as a doppelganger gadriel which I'm pretty sure they did practically with morphid Clark just waiting behind that rock and a body double in the foreground because they needed a body double anyway when these two were fighting each other in the wide shots and she says they could no longer distinguish me from the evil I was

fighting this is also a line gadriel said in SE one cuz I believe they could no longer distinguish me from the evil I was fighting and then siron takes the form of cellb rimbor are they not the seeds you planted yes calling back galadriel's dream earlier in the season when she planted those seeds in lynen in the Memorial Grove and then they sprouted into the tree that killed Kell rimbor in that Vision lifting him off the ground in a similar way Sauron propped him up in his actual death Sauron stabs her with the crown I

would have placed a crown upon your head I would never have rested until all Middle Earth had been brought to to its knees to worship the light of its Queen aha it's a not to the Regal version of gadriel when she had a really creepy moment with Frodo when he offered her the one ring in Fellowship you would have a queen not dark but beautiful and terrible as the shall love me and siron speaks to gadriel telepathically give me your ring this was also scene in Return of the King when kellor and gladel and elron

and Gandalf all kind of shared that telepathic group chat tolken actually described this in his text as for they did not move or speak with mouth looking from mind to mind and only their shining eyes stirred and kindled as their thoughts went to and fro Sauron takes the nine but gadrail realizing Sauron only wants to heal himself keeps Nya and similar to how Elon Dr Richard Kimble off the waterfall in Lynden in the season 2 premiere Galadriel does the same here meanwhile the dwarves led by narvi finally arrive to oron and free Elon and Gil

gallad and Aon Deere and the surviving elves from these Orcs but glug informs Sauron that the dwarves are covering the elves Retreat and that the Orcs are now outnumbered which comes directly from token's writings where the dwarves of kazad Doom attack sauron's forces from the rear allowing elron and his elves to escape and after that they would go on to establish Rivendell which is hinted at at the end of this episode when narvi says that elron and his elves found a valley in the north Gil galled says that gad's wounds are dragging her spe to

the shadow realm this may be a similar type of wound to the one froto received on the weather top in Fellowship when he was stabbed by a morgal knife that knife which broke off in Frodo's chest would have turned him into a wraith had not been healed by elron and the spell Gil gallad speaks has a similar audio effect to it this kind of interesting Echo to the LR spell that Arwin was chanting in Fellowship to summon the river to wipe out the Nazgul in the rubble of the store Village Nori removes the ribbons from

goon's tree and this branch is definitely the staff that Gandalf will later pick up to form his gond if not for Nory specifically tossing this in the way he would not have found it or rather it would not have found him now remember season 1 ended with poppy singing barar mccreary's Beautiful lyrics of the wandering day over a montage of all the characters something that stayed with us wers and Wanderers for over two years now it is this incredible speech by poppy quoting sadok burrow and I'm going to read the full passage here she says

some things can't be fixed some things lost are lost forever no matter how hard we fight how much it hurts or how much our hearts yearned to put them back together cuz this world's so much bigger than any of us and sometimes the winds blowing against us are just too strong strong at those times Mr burrow said we've just got to accept it what's broke is broke and won't fix and all anybody can do is try to build something new the pros itself isn't anything special as it shouldn't be if it's coming from sadok and

paraphrased by poppy but I find the sentiment to be so novel and so so appropriate for the times we live in including the way many of us watch the show now this being the Epitaph of the Season reminds us in a way of Puck's closing monologue to William Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream when he said if we Shadows have offended think but this and all is mended that you have but SL numbered here while these Visions did appear and this week and Idol theme no more yielding but a dream gentles do not reprehend if you pardon

we will mend and as I am an honest Puck if we have unearned luck now to escape the Serpent's Tongue we will make amends airong else the puck a liar call so good night unto you all give me your hands if we be friends and Robin shall restore amends because it's quite common in stories to end with this kind of sentiment of all things being mended everything being fixed order being restored but that's not to tolken understood that sometimes the world just gets too broken that you cannot go home again Frodo's wound never heals and

he has to leave Middle Earth behind de valanor so what wisdom does this season leave us with what's broke is broke and won't fix and all anybody can do is try to build something new and in the words cuz this world's so much bigger than any of us and sometimes the winds blowing against us are just too strong I kind of find a meta statement to the way these writers might feel about the fandom or really I should say the online Crosswinds blowing strongest against this series it is imp possible to please everyone who has

an opinion on the rings of power that battle is lost there exists a growing mirror world of very bitter voices who use streaming series like this as like poster targets for their rage and while it can be tempting to quote tweet and clap back at them to try to mend that divide you're not going to win that way you're not going to win fighting them on their Turf the world is too big the winds are too strong really The Way Forward is just to accept that the world is broken and just build something new because

you building something new is the way that you're actually going to fix the world build a new world don't try to fix the broken World also an interesting visual detail in the editing over the words what's broke is broke and won't fix the camera focuses on Ellen Deal's sword of Nar seal the sword that will one day be broken but in its Brokenness actually Forge something new that actually does the job and will of course be reforged in a new form a new sword that this lineage when it's completed will sanctify and over the words

all anybody can do is try to build something new we ironically see a shot of saon holding vor's Hammer clearly plotting to forge his own one ring in secret but that building something new also applies gandf who from the rubble of the store Village and the goons tree discovers his staff and his identity Poppy says don't be a stranger now which is a way of saying goodbye but also a met a line that now this character must cease to be known only as a stranger and he's called grandal twice in Rapid succession and tripping on

the Gand the Twisted fingery knob in which he will plug his pipe in one day he returns to Tom Bombadil and declares himself as gandal Tom says now let the song begin he's referring to the literal song they're about to sing together but also song is in story as this is the true beginning of the story of Gandalf the gry their singing ends with this the river daughter is Tom's wife and the one person in the room Tom was speaking to in the past episode narvi tells during the younger that the six other Dwarven Lords

want to collect the rings that they paid his father for and that his brother is gaining support to be the new king of the dwarves Duran having a younger brother was mentioned back in season 1 but has not been mentioned since and he doesn't have a known brother in the lore but we will see what happens with his other brother in season 3 Ladro wakes up in a Gorge and what will become Rivendell this Gorge the ridge the waterfall even the trees all match the way Rivendell looks in the real world part of Switzerland that

Peter Jackson used for his films the cerin name for Rivendell imladris means deep Dale of the cleft and it references this Gorge exactly there's also a small stream running past gadrail which looks like it flows into what I assume is the brunin river below where the rest of the refugees are gathered and the lore Rivendell is established over the next 2 years and then quickly besieged by sauron's forces which could imply a more defensive route there's a great subtle moment here as elrond lingers with Nya on his finger before handing it back over to gadriel

and gladel visibly reacts when the ring is put on her finger she's still in pain from her wounds and the ring healed her galad remembers Kell Rim's final words to her and how it's not strength that drives out the darkness but light and for the first time here in the land that will one day become Rivendell we see the True Light not a deceptive light from Sauron but the True Light of the Valar blessing these souls for the dark days ahead huge thanks to Noah Chen for helping me write this breakdown I would not have

been able to do this without him comment down below with your thoughts follow me at eaos subscribe to all three channels in the new rockstars Network for breakdowns and news coverage of everything you love thanks for watching and I'll see you next time bye [Music] [Music]