TL;DR – In our first episode back, we take a moment to reacquaint ourselves with the whole band as the world of Middle Earth starts to fall apart.  

Disclosure – I paid for the Amazon Prime service that viewed this episode.

The Rings of Power Review –

Back in 2022, a very bold chance was taken. Can you jump back into the world of The Lord of the Rings but only using some of the appendices as a guide? Now, the actual result was quite mixed for people. However, I loved that first season very much, and I am excited to see where we go from here.

So, to set the scene, Sauron (Jack Lowden) was once a great lieutenant for the evil Morgoth, but once Morgoth was defeated, he alone stood to rule the orcs. The orcs had other ideas. So, how did an elf become the human Halbrand (Charlie Vickers) we first met back in Adrift? Back in the present, Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) and Elrond (Robert Aramayo) are racing to find the best use of the new rings when Elrond has Galadriel drawn in front of High King Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker) and the future of the Elves is thrown into sunder. But is Elrond willing to disobey his own king? Now, from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.      

In our first episode back, we jump into three of our five different storylines. I assume we will get the Dwarves and Númenór next week, but let us look at what we got today. The main throughline this week is the Elves and their fight against the corruption sitting there waiting to take over. It was an interesting exploration into what you do when you feel like your backs are against the wall. It is here that you get the temptation to take the easy option, but maybe that easy option has too many loopholes in the contract.

What we get for most of this episode is a contest about what to do with the titular rings, where you have Galadriel and Elrond on the opposite side of things. Galadriel knows who made them but also sees them as the last chance to save the Elves, while Elrond can’t help but know the danger that could be lurking in the terms and services. However, while he put his strength in wiser members of the Elves, his faith was misplaced. The whole sequence as the tree comes back to life was stunning to watch, but I feel like the hints of Holum’s theme in the musical score were an intentional choice.

Speaking of Gollum, we sort of start this season with a homage to the start of The Return of the King, but we get Sauron’s story. Seeing that he was betrayed, it takes a different look at his story from last season. This first episode was him playing the mischief across the southern lands now called Mordor. Part of this is him setting past enemies in the direction of conflict with each other. I don’t think anyone at any point thought he was in any real danger in that prison. He was always going to walk out of his own volition, and that dude was going to end up dead. That was almost written in stone. However, how they pulled it off was a delight, with a level of pettiness that perfectly works with Sauron.

Finally, it was time to follow The Stranger (Benjamin Walker) and Nori Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh) and how they got stuck in the desert trying to get to Rhûn. This might have been the weakest part of the first episode, mainly because nothing much happens, but a surprise Poppy Proudfellow (Megan Richards) arrives to magic them back on the right trail. This is not to say this section is terrible. It was just that there was not enough concrete here, but there were a lot of hints. The production of the show continues to be a delight, but most of the time, they need to do a bit more work on their water effects.

In the end, do we recommend The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Elven Kings Under the Sky? Yes. This first episode involves catching up and setting the scene for what is to come. However, it was still a delight because it is great to be back in this world, and one that the people working on it clearly love.