Rings Of Power Season 2: A Post-Mortem

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The Critical Drinker
With Season 2 of The Rings of Power finally over, I figured now was as good a time as any to try to ...
Video Transcript:
it's done and so another shambolic bloated incoherent mess of a rings of power season finally staggers over the Finish Line like a 300 marathon runner in a novelty divers outfit and all that's left now is to grab a stick and poke its twitching oversized carcass out of sheer morbid curiosity for whatever flatulent excretions we can provoke this show is a failure in ways that I didn't even think were possible all of the problems and annoyances of season 1 haven't just continued they've grown exponentially like a cancer allowed to spread unchecked the massive and mostly unnecessary
cast of characters the hamy acting the complete lack of World building the tonal Whiplash the nonsensical and conflicting character motivations the jokes that aren't funny and the supposedly serious moments that are unintentionally hilarious it's all here and it's all worse than ever it's a show that somehow man to be rushed and superficial boiling Complex events spanning hundreds of years down into a handful of greasy congealed scenes but also bone achingly slow and ponderous taking forever to get most of its plot Lines Moving keeping characters stuck in frustrating holding patterns and repeating the same ideas over
and over again and since this feels more like an autopsy video than a review I figured it's as good a time as any for me to go over some of the biggest problems plaguing this show because who knows maybe just maybe someone from Amazon might see it one day and promptly ignore it problem the first too many characters this by far is the show's biggest fundamental problem because it spawns so many other problems that Ripple through the rest of the narrative see not only is balancing a large cast of characters spread over multiple locations in
such a way that the audience never loses sight of where everyone is and what they're doing difficult enough even for skilled writers with strong Source material to draw from of which rings of power has neither but the problems compounded in this case because the writers have brought in a whole bunch of extra characters that either didn't exist in talking story or are doing things and going to places where they were never supposed to be like dangal and those stupid [ __ ] Hobbits who spend literally the entire season walking around and doing absolutely nothing of
substance the actual character of Gandalf shouldn't even be in Middle Earth for Like A Thousand Years yet and the writers know this so they know they can't have him interact directly with the main story line which leaves him stuck in a random corner of the world map spending an entire season looking for his staff and trying to decide on a name for himself God it's pointless boring time wasting stuff that absolutely kills the already terrible Pac and it's done purely because the writers wanted another iconic character that people would recognize Along with Dan gal comes
the two Hobbits which again have no meaningful place in the story and exist purely because the writers remember Sam and Frodo from the movies the thing is Sam and Frodo had an actual quest to follow their mission was of vital importance to the story they weren't just wandering aimlessly across Middle Earth because they had nothing better to do these characters should absolutely never have been in this show their presence is compounded by terrible performances from two actresses who can't seem to believe that they're even there and every single time they show up I have to
grp my teeth like Tatiana and pray it'll be over soon which it usually is in Tatiana's case likewise the writers know that aelor is going to be important to the story eventually so they have to account for his existence but they also have absolutely no idea what to do with him at this stage so just like Dan gal he's been put into a time- wasting holding pattern his entire Arc this season could be boiled down to escape a spider find a horse find a kid find a woman get [ __ ] blocked and then go
home in the half yeah [ __ ] thrilling stuff right there then there's Aaron Deere another point creation of the showrunners whose only vague reason for being in the story pretty much vanished when the actress playing her [ __ ] off to save the world or something I mean he always felt like he was putting this show to make a point rather than having a strong character Arc in mind but now he's just kind of there hanging around where he isn't needed and showing up wherever the writers want some cheesy Matrix style fight scenes honestly
every single time I see his blank gormless face show up in another place he's got no good reason to be it's like hearing that Pedro Pascal has been C in yet another role he isn't suited to ruthlessly pursuing his quest to be in every single show movie and video game in existence this right here is the very reason why you don't [ __ ] with the source material especially when the source material was written by one of the greatest authors of the 20th century problem the second the worlds much like the first season the actual
dimensions and layout of Middle Earth are still a complete [ __ ] mystery because characters and even entire armies can apparently fast travel from one to another hundreds of miles away in the space of a single episode the result is that even for someone like me with a half decent grasp of the geography of actual Middle Earth the timeline of events here is completely nonsensical and confusing at one point an orc Army numbering in the tens of thousands complete with supplies Siege engines and all the associated equipment they'd need is somehow able to travel from
Mordor to Aon a journey of almost 1,000 miles with an entire mountain range in between in the space of like two episodes without being spotted or tracked by anyone [ __ ] and the show makes absolutely no effort to account for any of this a fantasy story lives or dies by the believability of its world and despite having perhaps the most richly described fictional World in all of literature rings of power still manages to [ __ ] it up because it refuses to adhere to its own rules and if it doesn't care about crafting a
believable story then why should the audience problem the third everyone is a complete idiot characters in rings of power range from childishly gullible and foolish to Mak an insane leaps of logical deduction that exist purely to move the plot forwards the elves supposedly the wisest and most intelligent beings in Middle Earth are easily duped into making the rings of Power by a guy who conveniently shows up out of nowhere claiming he wants to help and immediately takes command of the entire city without a single objection like nobody thinks that he might have alterior motives for
doing all this nobody [ __ ] off show battles are conducted in a way that could only come from the minds of soft comfortable Millennial Californian writers that have never so much as glanced at a book on medieval warfare commanders of armies are willing to give up a decisive advantage that could end an existential threat to the entire world purely because their friendy Wendy happens to be in danger problem the fourth siron the show's treatment of siron is probably one of the most embarrassing and degrading pieces of character assassination I think I've ever seen in
my life literally the most terrifying manifestation of evil in Middle Earth more like a dark God or a force of nature than a living being has been reduced to a wimpy looking guy in a cheap wig crying like a little girl and sing over gadriel of all people I mean I get it it's a modern show for a modern audience which means it's written by people whose entire literary worldview consists of wouldn't it be cool if these two characters had feelings for each other but good God they broke the dial on the cringe machine when
they put this [ __ ] together this is going to shock you to your core but believe it or not some people are motivated by more than just who they want to [ __ ] it doesn't Elevate these two characters by giving them a sappy romance story to tie them together when they never actually interacted with each other in the source material but it actually diminishes Sauron as an antagonist because his entire Arc now is motivated by trying really hard to impress gadriel The Writer's trying to humanize a character that absolutely isn't human and isn't
motivated by the same drives and needs as a human and I don't know man if I was siron I certainly wouldn't want to put my finger in this girl's ring problem the fifth moral retardation just like so much of the shitty nihilistic post-modernist sludge manifest in his entertainment today there's a pervasive and laughably hamfisted attempt to rewrite the nature of good versus evil in rings of Power by reframing villains like siron Adar and even the Orcs has conflicted and morally gray beings with valid reasons for doing what they do the Orcs aren't violent and destructive
beings of pure rage and hatred who exist only to fight and kill now they're misunderstood victims who just want to find a home and raise their families in peace and it's only those nasty men and elves who keep persecuting them you see it's so laughable and ridiculous that I have to keep reminding myself that yes this is real this was actually put into a mainstream show by writers who probably thought they were making some deep philosophical point about good versus evil that would make for interesting stuff in an episode of Star Trek the Next Generation
but it absolutely does not work in a fantasy setting like this especially one where the nature of the Orcs has already been very well established by the author and it all flows from the same lack of creativity and Imagination that sees Parallels for modern society and people in absolutely everything where none was ever supposed to exist the Orcs are not supposed to be a metaphor for some racial or cultural group in the modern world so they don't have to be given the let's see things from their point of view treatment if good and evil don't
really exist in this show then why the [ __ ] should I root for the supposed good guys when they're no better than the villains all of these various problems collectively add up to a show that just refuses to learn from its mistakes that's so set on its course that even losing half its audience isn't enough to change direction and that's likely to go down as the most expensive flop in entertainment history and what's particularly interesting is the reaction to it now or lack thereof the first season of rings of power up a firestorm of
controversy and backlash from token fans who were rightly disgusted by such a bastardization of their worlds but there's been this kind of quiet resignation that's settled on this season like people have already made the rational decision that the show is simply irredeemable and just walked away from it and honestly if I wasn't here specifically to review it I probably would have joined them who knows how many of them will even stick around for season 3 I certainly don't anyway that's all of got for today go away now
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