TL;DR – As a show, it continues to balance all the competing stories while being a thrilling ride.

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

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Review –

When you have a large ensemble cast, it is easy to lose people and whole stories in the cut, where you end up seeing someone on screen and wondering where they came from before. Three episodes in, The Rings of Power might have one of the biggest ensemble casts I have seen for a while, but they always make sure you know the context of every person.

So to set the scene, in Adrift, Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) decided to jump off her boat and swim back to Middle Earth, through the Sundering Seas, than leave her quest unfulfilled. Luckily for her, she spots a raft and is helped by Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), but after a storm leaves them asunder, they are rescued by Elendil (Lloyd Owen) and taken to the island kingdom of Númenór. In the Southlands, Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) has been captured by Orcs, but instead of being killed, he is led through covered tunnels full of captured human workers. They dig a tunnel to keep the orcs protected from the bright Sun. Things are bad, but they are worse when Arondir gets to the pit and discovers that all his Elvish companions were also captured before they could return home. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.