Midseason Review: "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power"
The most expensive TV series of all time brute forces its way into bringing Middle-earth to life.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Created by J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay)
In the months leading up to the premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Amazon Studios touted one idea above all others: money equals success. Their much-publicized acquisition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s estate—one in which Bezos himself was personally involved—was an unapologetic bid to rival HBO’s megahit series Game of Thrones. Amazon had yet to enter into the Peak TV landscape to the extent they hoped, and in the end turned to The Lord of the Rings, one of the last bastions of unproduced franchise IP, for success. Amazon eventually gave a five-season commitment worth upwards of $1 billion (unquestionably the most expensive television production of all time) to the largely inexperienced showrunner duo of J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay. Though Payne and McKay came off in interviews as capable writers and Tolkien aficionados, it more often felt like Amazon Studios was the series’ sole showrunner.
Which left only one question: could a megastudio like Amazon brute force their way into Prestige Television? Or were they doomed to overspend on a broken project?
Five episodes in, The Rings of Power seems to prove that hundreds of millions of dollars can, in fact, beget quality—or at the very least help you ignore a series’ shortcomings. When all else fails (and things often do), The Rings of Power turns back those deep Bezos pockets for splendor and spectacle, and dammit, the money works. The lush New Zealand landscapes do just as much magic as they did in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the show’s creative team knows just how fill them with epic battles, eccentric creatures, and the sprawling glory of Middle-earth’s many kingdoms. These aesthetics, rendered with a dazzling mixture of practical and computer-generated effects, are enchanting in a manner synonymous with both Tolkien’s legendarium and Jackson’s cinematic vision—an impressive feat, indeed.
It may seem unfair to credit corporate executives for the show’s most transportive qualities, yet that $465 million special effects always feels like it’s working the hardest to realize The Rings of Power’s potent sense of scale. The groundhog-like emergence of the miniature Harfoots from their camouflaged homes, World War I-style trenches dug by a slew of grimy Orcs, the never-ending subterranean Dwarven kingdom of Khazad-dûm—these are all moments with that “wow” factor present only in the best of fantasy epics, and couldn’t have been realized without Amazon’s unprecedented billion-dollar check.
Because, hey, if you’re going to spend that much money on Yet Another Franchise Prequel, it may as well be on Tolkien. Middle-earth is among the most comprehensive fantasy universes in existence; there’s bound to be some captivating tales therein. The Rings of Power takes place near the end of the Second Age, a time period set several thousand years before the events of The Lord of the Rings. As narrated by the elf Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) in the opening minutes of the first episode, the war against the Dark Lord Morgoth has concluded, but a new enemy is on the rise: Sauron, his pupil, is in hiding, and once again threatens peace and stability on Middle-earth. Galadriel, having lost her brother by Sauron’s evil hand, swears vengeance, and embarks on a journey to vanquish him.
Galadriel’s character, unfortnately, is perhaps The Rings of Power’s weakest element. The intention seems to have been to fashion her character into some sort of warrior-princess whose hatred for Sauron is all-consuming. Instead, she comes off instead as a childish Mary Sue. Several action sequences throughout the season render her the only capable soldier amidst a crew of imbeciles, making her portrayal feel all the more out of place. Morfydd Clark, an excellent actor who conveys botomless fury with the slightest quiver of the lip, does a noble job with a shallow role.
Far more rounded re the series’ other characters, and a universally excellent cast help transform The Rings of Power into a striking ensemble epic. The elf Elrond returns from Jackson’s film trilogy (Robert Aramayo, replacing Hugo Weaving), here ordered by High King Gil-Galad (Benjamin Walker) to make political alliance with the traditionally unfriendly Dwarves. Elrond’s friendship with the Dwarven prince, Durin IV (Owain Arthur), quickly becomes a season highlight. Elsewhere, in the Southlands, an impoverished human settlement, a hidden romance between the elf Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) and the human Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi) takes place amid the backdrop of Orcish attacks. Elsewhere still, a bearded stranger crash-lands from the skies near a migratory tribe of Harfoots (Hobbits’ evolutionary precursors), who are preparing for their seasonal travels. The stranger (Daniel Weyman) is soon discovered by the young Nori Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh), a Harfoot girl with Bilbo-like yearnings for adventure.
By the third episode, the show has introduced over a dozen major characters and just as many plotlines, and balances this The Wire-level sprawl with impressive economy. Dwarvish political intrigue, the violent reemergence of the Orcs, and Harfoot family migration drama all take place without any immediate narrative relationships; they are instead connected by a sense that a larger threat looms over them all. That this storytelling method doesn’t feel contrived is one of the series’ great strengths: its world is so expansive and interconnected that even the most disparate of characters feel aligned.
Whatever its scope, The Rings of Power struggles on a beat-by-beat level. Episodic narratives about anti-elf racism or a secretive mineral at the bottom of a Dwarven mine can feel less a part of Tolkien’s legendarium than side quests in a teenage Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Other moments, like the stealing of a star map or the acquisition of a guild members’ seal, feel similarly aimless. Rather than using character agency as a platform for forward narrative momentum, The Rings of Power sees everything as an extension of its Big Important Story. The show’s smaller moments suffer as a result.
Which is a shame, considering how impeccably Jackson’s Lord of the Rings understood the joy in simple things. We related to Hobbits first and foremost because of their obsession with food, family, and festivities—not for their connection to interspecies politics or world-ending schemes. The Rings of Power works in the opposite direction. Payne and McKay have conceived of their show on the basis of Tolkien’s impossibly grand mythology, and reverse-engineered characters to fit within it. It’s an odd formula, but it does what it is designed to do: transport us back to Middle-earth, the most magical of places. That billion-dollar check didn’t create a masterpiece, but it did bring that world to life. —James Fahey