"Not All That Glitters Is Gold"

My (mostly spoiler free) review of The Rings of Power, season 2 premiere

A few days ago on Instagram, I posted a poll asking if anyone was excited for season two of Amazon’s new show, The Rings of Power. I was curious to know the results, especially since the first season of the show pretty much tanked. By saying that, I don’t mean to disparage those who enjoyed season one, but the reality is that the show has been hit with a massive amount of criticism since its release. The current Rotten Tomatoes Popcornmeter rating for season one is 38%, taken from 25,000+ reviews. The rating for the entire show since the release of season two this week is 50%. A little better, but still pretty rough. In contrast The Fellowship of the Ring film is still going strong with a Popcornmeter rating of 95%.

Despite Amazon’s constant promotion efforts on social media and elsewhere, the comment sections on their posts for the last year have been filled with a landslide of negative feedback. In fact the negative reaction to the first season was so overwhelming that I felt kind of sorry for them… or I would have, if the comments hadn’t been so terribly funny.

Anyways, back to my Instagram poll. In my poll I stated that I had promised myself to never discuss the show on my media platforms. The main reason was that while I did not personally enjoy the first season, there were already many people voicing their dislike of it and I did not feel a need to add my voice to the mix. Additionally, there were a lot of Tolkien fans who enjoyed it, and I felt that they were entitled to their opinions.

However, as of last night I have decided to break my promise. We just finished watching the third episode of season two and since Amazon has clearly tried to make some changes in their approach to the show, I figured I would throw in my two cents about what I thought worked well and did not work well in the premiere episodes of season two. Since there are still a lot of people who have not yet seen all of the new episodes, I will avoid discussing any essential plot events.

What Worked Well

It seemed obvious that Amazon listened to some of the negative feedback they received from season one and made an effort to clean up their act in this season. There were three main areas where I noticed an improvement. The first was in the character of Sauron. I personally could not stand the Sauron from season one. I understand that some people drooled over the morally gray, bad boy vibes, but I was not one of those people. It felt egregiously off-key from how Tolkien describes his evil characters.

Thankfully, season two makes a quick transition into an image of Sauron that is more angelically fair but deceptively cunning. This is much closer to how Sauron is described in works like the Silmarillion. They even change his physical appearance (thank goodness), and accomplish it all in a way that fits pretty seamlessly into the plot. I hope this is a sign that they will be presenting him differently moving forward.

The second area was the plot. The first season wasted massive amounts of time on pointless side stories that felt more like fan fiction than Tolkien’s own work. Season two already feels like it is moving at a better pace. We seem to be moving more quickly to the heart of the conflict in many areas. That being said, I do think Amazon could do a little more work in this area to tighten things up (Did we really need three episodes of Nori and the Stranger doing nothing but walking?).

In addition, Amazon has found some creative ways to either cut out or minimize the focus on random side characters. I won’t say who because, well, spoilers, but I will just say that I am glad to see them putting more of a focus on the characters that are actually from Tolkien’s world. I hope that trend continues. Also, Isildur is cool.

Third, at least in these first three episodes the elves feel and act just a little bit more like Tolkien’s elves. We hear a beautiful song and some dialogue that feels more natural. The elves as a group also seem more concerned with the care of Middle Earth. This is a hallmark of Tolkien’s elves in his stories, but it was severely overshadowed in season one by corny dialogue and Galadriel’s girl boss vendetta. The beginning of season two sees the elves focusing more on how to care for the world they live in. I would not go so far as to say that Amazon has perfectly captured Tolkien’s elves, but they did feel just a little bit closer to that goal. I would like to see them press even more into this aspect.

What Did not Work Well

There is still a ton going on in this show. Even though Amazon has cut out or minimized some of the side characters from season one, I think they need to do more editing. Those who have read the Silmarillion or enjoy complex fantasy plots might not mind it, but the average viewer who is only somewhat familiar with Middle Earth will easily get lost. Of course, the end goal is to tie these story threads together, but in the meantime they need to find a way to simplify and unify the many different pieces they are juggling. It might help if they continued the trend of cutting out random, made up side characters and just focused on telling the essential story line really well. A plus side of this would be that they would make a lot of Tolkien fans happier, since many people did not care much for all of the added characters (myself included).

This leads into my second and biggest issue with the show. It still does not, for me, feel entirely true to Tolkien’s creative style. Amazon continues to add in far too much of their own material, and the result is cringey. Orc babies (yep, you read that right), creepy desert wizards, morally gray bad guys, orc families who “just want peace” (lol what?), bounty hunters that look like a mix between Dune and Star Wars, Venom-Sauron (IYKYK)… You get the picture. I am not saying that those details are inherently bad ideas, they are just not in line with how and what Tolkien wrote.

As with the first season, I feel like the problem boils down to creative interpretation. Personally, I am not really interested in Amazon’s interpretation of Tolkien’s world. I am interested in Tolkien’s interpretation of Tolkien’s world. They don’t have to make new things up or add their own flair to make it interesting. In fact the more they do this, the more it falls flat.

I understand that creative interpretation is a thing, but when you are dealing with something as iconic, unique, and classic as Tolkien’s world, the margin becomes significantly smaller. At least it does if your goal is to remain faithful to what the author intended. In these cases, less is more. My feedback to them would be to try to represent Tolkien’s legendarium just as it is. And if they find themselves asking, “Well what if it happened in this way?” it would probably be best to remember that Tolkien, being the prolific and scrupulous writer that he was, probably thought of all those ideas as possible options. If he did not include something in the story, it’s probably because he did not think it would be a good idea to have it in there.

This was my main issue with season one and it is still present in season two. I know that the ROP team had a limited access to specific details about Middle Earth lore, but nonetheless there is so much material on Middle Earth that was written by Tolkien that simply by soaking themselves in his writings, they could have at least done a better job capturing the feel of Middle Earth, while making wise decisions about how far to go (and where to stop!) with creative interpretation. At the end of these first few episodes, I was left with the same questions I had at the end of season one. Exactly who did they write this for? What was their goal in making it? And what is their impression of Tolkien’s world?

Concluding Thoughts

J.R.R. Tolkien himself warned us about appearances. Things are not always as they seem. An unknown ranger from the wilderness can emerge as the long-awaited heir to the throne. Friends can betray each other. Hobbits can save the world. And even though a show might invest in every external production technique known to man, it can still miss the heart of its source material. The Rings of Power might not be a “bad” show, and I sincerely hope it will continue to improve. But Tolkien’s world deserves more than just “not bad.” It deserves “great.” At the very least, it deserves accuracy. And since we who have loved these stories in their original form know full well that “not all that glitters is gold,” we should perhaps ask ourselves if we like this show because it glitters, or because it has actually captured the heart of the stories we know and love so well. For me, so far, it has not.¹

1. I would like to end my thoughts with two caveats. First, people love LOTR for different reasons. That’s one of the beautiful things about Tolkien’s work: its universality. So depending on what draws people to the story in general, they may like ROP more or less. Second, nothing is ever a lost cause until it is over and done. I am fully open to being surprised by the rest of the season. Therefore, I will leave room for Treebeard’s advice here (“We must not be hasty”).