The Elvish players should be at the heart of any series called the Rings of Power, but mostly they come off as a sideshow.

World-building: Production Design on Ost-in-Edhil is pretty nice (points for the use of the holly badge), but Lindon is largely a miss. (Where do they sleep? Where do they go when it rains? Why do they dress like that?) The written world-building is either mostly awful or very much not what it appears to be. The Elves are apparently terminally ill as a species with only months to live (instead of slowly fading over millenia); mithril is allegedly the byproduct of the destruction of a Silmaril (a type of legendary jewel which was famously indestructible except at the hands of its Elvish creator.) These elements are way out of touch with the source material, and are speculated by fans (and somewhat backed up by hints from the producers) to be not literally true.

Gil-Galad: I don’t know what this actor did to annoy the hair, makeup and wardrobe department, but they seem to all be conspiring to make him look bad, to a degree only paralleled by that time Disney dressed Princess Leia up as Gary Oldman’s Dracula, and that time Eiko Ishioka dressed Gary Oldman up as Gary Oldman’s Dracula. Unlike the situation with Durin III, the audience doesn’t yet grasp whether the character is right about much of what’s going on(1), so he comes off as a jerk in general. He has one shining moment in the final episode, where Celebrimbor offers to make him The One Crown of Power, and he rejects it utterly, with quiet dignity. This moment, and his reactions during the table incident with Durin IV, where it’s clear that he knows the Dwarf is blowing smoke up his orifice, give me hope that the actor will rise to the occasion if given decent material in the future. Just please, sir, be nice to the crew and get them to give you a makeover.

Gil-Galad sending Elves to Valinor: I could see Gil-Galad having some kind of mystical insight into which of his people would be accepted in Valinor at any given time, or him simply releasing his vassals from their obligations so they can to try and sail west if they want to. The writing, however, makes it sound like he’s arbitrarily deciding who deserves to go, which is not how it works in the source material, quite aside from Tolkien going back and forth on the idea of Galadriel being banned in Japan Valinor. People get unreasonably bent out of shape about Galadriel being his vassal when she’s a collateral relative several generations/millenia older than him. But he is High King of the Noldor, which in the Silmarillion and related texts comes with some measure of authority over other High Elven rulers, regardless of relative age.

Finrod: (Galadriel’s brother, seen in the prologue and in a distorted version when Sauron violates her memories in the season finale). Aside from the George Lucas dialogue and the limited screentime, a very solid interpretation of my favorite First Age character. Hard to find an actor that good looking who can come off as wise, gentle and not particularly self-centered.

Elrond: Hands-down, the best interpretation of this character ever, and the best thing about this show. Wise, shrewd, kindly, great chemistry with Celebrimbor, Galadriel, Disa, and Durin IV. He’s a little hamstrung by the script, which has him angsting about random stuff at times and making and breaking promises in a trivial way. But as far as I am concerned, ROP is the Elrond, Elendil, and Dwarves show, and everyone else is along for the ride.

I will deal with Celebrimbor next week, in connection with the making of his masterpiece, the Three Rings of Power.

(…To the hypothetical person making Mansfield Park with Lloyd Owen as abolitionist Sir Thomas, please cast Will Fletcher, aka Finrod, as the male romantic lead, Edmund Bertram, younger son of Sir Thomas, and Robert Aramayo, aka Elrond, as romantic anti-hero/anti-villain Henry Crawford. Thank you in advance, etc.)

(1)I give Gil-Galad props for apparently deciding that the Elvish troops in the Southlands are doing more harm than good; it speaks to a personality that isn’t interested in power for its own sake.