The good news is that we may have bottomed out on the u-shaped curve of this season’s quality. Or it’s going to be a very misshapen W. Remains to be seen really. All spoiler alerts apply.

Religion In Numenor: THAT’S NOT HOW THIS WORKS, THAT’S NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS

-The climax of the Numenorean subplot to this episode takes place at some kind of memorial service for the dead in a waterfront shrine to Nienna, the Vala of compassion and mourning, also the teacher of Gandalf in Valinor. The King’s Men show up, throw their weight around, and a series of unfortunate events leads to Kemen (Pharazon’s son and Earien’s love interest) stabbing Valandil (Isildur’s other annoying friend) in the back and killing him. In the process, some kind of Numorean priest or deacon has a hissy fit over the destruction of Nienna’s statue, saying now she won’t cry for the lost souls. NOPE. NOPE. and NOPE.

-Tolkien is surprisingly specific about religion in Numenor. There’s a big mountain in the center of the island called the Meneltarma. From the top, you can sometimes see Tol Eressea, an island which is the easternmost part of the Undying Lands. (It’s not technically Valinor but it is, let’s say, Valinor-adjacent). Occasionally Elves from Tol Eressea come over to Numenor and say hello with gifts, including the White Tree. Four times a year, the ruler of Numenor climbs to the top of the mountain, accompanied by the vast majority of the population, and there the ruler of Numenor prays to Eru, the Creator of Valar, Maiar, Elves and Men(1). The eagles of Manwe, chief of the Valar, also dwell here. People who feel like praying or meditating often hike up the sacred mountain on their own time, but no one speaks aloud. The Valar were, in the good old days, respected by the Numenoreans as “good neighbors” and Higher Powers, but the only narrative fiction Tolkien wrote about Numenor’s heyday (the unfinished Aldarion and Erendis) doesn’t show the humans taking much interest in them or worshipping them.

-In the later, darker days, the Faithful of Andunie (what ROP calls “The Western Shore”) continued to have secret contact with the Elves of Tol Eressea, initially by secret sailing visits from Tol Eressea, and later by the palantiri. Since we’re talking about long-lived people with good memories, it seems unlikely that they would become so superstitious as to think Nienna would stop being compassionate over the destruction of her statue.

–Or start mistaking Valinor for the place they go when they die, which the phrasing of their prayers for the dead in the show implies. This isn’t hard, people, it’s one of the most important things about Tolkien’s universe that LOTR doesn’t tell you but the Silmarillion does: Elves stay in the world until the end of the world, and will grow weary of their lifestyle long before the end comes. If they’re killed they just live as disembodied spirits in part of Valinor called Mandos, until they’ve recovered from their traumas or repented of their sins. Men die permanently and go beyond the world.

-I’ve seen the argument made that the show needed to have something less abstract than the prayers to Eru as a counterpoint to what the Numenoreans get up to under Sauron’s influence. Okay….but why slander the Valar by making them sound petty about the treatment of their images? We’re never going to see more than the vaguest of glimpses of them, so what the good guys, human or otherwise, tell the audience about the good guy counterparts to Morgoth and Sauron is important.

Other Numenor Stuff

-Lloyd Owen as Elendil, still the best thing about this subplot, still not given enough to do. Liked him taking the queen’s hand off his chest. The Sea Guards getting purged of those Pharazon deems politically unreliable is one of ROP’s more authentic moments with regard to how political intrigues work, and the ex-Sea Guards support for Elendil was another nice moment.

-Trystan Gravelle as Pharazon, still the third best thing about this subplot, after Owen and the production design. Gets to lay out his motives for everything else he will do in this show in a conversation with Kemen.

-I liked the fact that Elendil had a different vision in the palantir from what Miriel and her father had seen, and that Miriel put the wrong interpretation on it. Previously things going wrong for Miriel have always been other people’s faults: Galadriel’s bad (induced by Halbrand) ideas, Pharazon’s political schemes, Adar’s Bond Villain schemes, Kemen blowing stuff up. It’s nice to see this rather drearily virtuous character make a simple, honest, perfectly understandable mistake about what’s going on.

-Valandil died well, and I liked his cowboy moment earlier in season 2. I really didn’t care for him in season 1, when he came off as this snotty star rugby player type who kept twerps like Isildur and Ontamo around as his wingmen to make him look good. So, no, not shedding any tears for him.

-Kemen: the whiplash from pathetic insecure weasel with mommy issues to persecutor of the Faithful did not work for me. Some editors cut down the Numenor arc because they thought it was unnecessary, and then went and whined to Fellowship of Fans and similar leak/info gatherers when the producers tried to make them put some of the cut material back in, leading of course to a backlash from the “ONLY ELVES AND SAURON MATTER” crowd, which appears to have filtered back to Amazon and stymied the producers’ attempts to fix the problem. I will not be nice to those editors if I meet them. (Not that I’m all that nice a person to begin with….)

–Kemen’s mother supposedly predicted him coming to “ill ends,” plural. A lot of people seem to think it points to him becoming something with a long and unpleasant undeadish sort of life under Sauron’s control, like a Nazgul or the Mouth of Sauron. Given how crappy this show is at dialogue, I don’t know if I’d put that much trust in it.

–Kemen seemed jealous of Earien’s friendship with Valandil; probably played into Kemen’s decision to kill him.

-Earien could still go either way, there’s some indication of her trying to mitigate the persecution of the Faithful, and she is very fond of the late Valandil. I don’t think she gets out of this show alive, but she may get a redemption arc yet.

-cowboy moment for this episode: Kemen and Elendil almost having a showdown at high noon in front of the ex-Sea Guards.

Lindon

-Elrond runs around looking silly trying to get back to his boss. Gil Galad, you really should have budgeted for the horses. Producers, you REALLY should have budgeted for the horses. And less dorky-looking stock footage for Gil’s vision.

-I didn’t like Elrond gesturing with Nenya when he says Galadriel was right about the attack on Eregion, it makes it seem like he’s saying she’s right about the ring, which would be a really stupid 180 even by ROP standards.

-The people I watched with were more sympathetic to Gil Galad standing around fretting about his visions than I was. Get a grip, dude, you’re High King of the Noldor in Exile. And judging by your hair color you’re not from the Golden House of Finarfin in this adaptation, so why are you acting like a close relative of Galadriel’s lamest brother, Orodreth?

Khazad Dum

-Well acted, poorly edited, and with the usual refusal to let Disa be wrong about anything. Some goofy math about the seven Dwarf Realms, with Durin III implying at one point that there are seven realms in addition to his own, which would be….eight. Not sure why Durin IV is back to being on bad terms with Dad – I hadn’t thought they’d quarreled that badly over the business with the rings. The last couple of scenes were excellent.

The Invisible Woman of Ost-en-Edhil

-Umpty years after the cheapskates at Hammer Films gave up on the idea of adding the Invisible Man to their stable of monsters, Bray Studios finally hosts an Invisible Woman! It was cool to watch but choreographed in an illogical way that is not consistent with what we’re told is actually happened (Mirdania with a ring on sees Sauron’s true nature in the Unseen Realm and alternately runs away from and tries to defend herself against this monster that she sees.)

-Annatar saying very intensely: “You’re the very likeness of her (Galadriel)” to Mirdania. Me: “Wow, maybe she really is Gal’s estranged daughter going by a nickname(2)!” Mirdania’s weird, rigid initial reaction and awkward change of expression afterwards. Me: “I don’t know what that was, but I don’t think it’s her reacting to being compared to her estranged mom. Theory discarded.”

-Charles Edwards continues to waver back and forth between the right and wrong kind of theatricality for me, but his character arc as Celebrimbor is pretty interesting in this episode. He seems to realize that Annatar is not what he claimed to, but feels like he’s in too deep to back out now, especially now that Annatar is quietly bending the loyalties of the smiths away from their original leader. Charlie Vickers is solid as usual.

-Nice to see the Doors of Durin and the little speech about the password was fun.

-At least one person I watched with thought the ring Mirdania was test-driving was the One Ring. I think we should have been given at least one close up showing it with a gemstone.

Endnotes

(1) Eru also adopted, and thereby gave souls to, Aule’s frankendwarfs, of whom the first to awaken was Durin I.

(2) Actually, “Celebrian” could be a nickname for all Tolkien ever says about it. The name “Galadriel” was originally a nickname Celeborn gave to his beloved and she chose to go by it in preference to the names her parents had given her. No reason “Celebrian” couldn’t have started out as Elrond’s pet name for his future wife.