Episode Six of The Rings of Power continues . . .
SWITCH
Arondir realizes that the villagers have killed their own people, the ones who left to join Adar.
FIVE
The real attack begins.
In slowmo, villagers are downed by arrows. Arondir carries Bronwyn, shot in the upper chest, into the tavern. Survivors watch as Theo and Arondir tend her wound. Making a paste of blood and alfirin seeds, Arondir seals the holes while Theo, cringing, cauterizes them.
Outside, orcs chant as Adar approaches through the fire. They bring a ram to the tavern door.
Cut to Elendil’s cavalry riding over the land at full gallop, Galadriel in the vanguard.
Back to the tavern door smashing to splinters. Arondir resists, but they’re outnumbered. Adar enters. In elvish he asks Arondir for “what I seek”. While Arondir thinks, orcs impale villagers. When orcs go for Bronwyn, Theo gives up the hiding place for the hilt. Adar achieves his goal, the weapon now in his hands.
As he steps outside, Elendil’s cavalry arrives. Fighting commences.
We see all of our favorite characters kill orcs, including Galadriel (her hair in a long braid) riding in with a Legolas-style stunt. The Queen with her guard overlook the battle from a hillside. She allows Isildur to ride down and join the fighting.
As he crosses the bridge, he sees his father pulled from his horse. Leaping over orcs, Isildur races to help. It’s Halbrand, though, who saves him with a spear throw. (Come on now. We all know Elendil can’t die here. The point is to see father and son, who’ve been at odds, work as a team.)
Galadriel notices Arondir and speaks to him in elvish. He points out Adar, who mounts a horse, and tells her he must not escape with the relic. With another quick Legolas move, she gives chase. Watching, Arondir glows with the privilege of seeing the Commander of the Northern Armies, and Theo admires her, too. Halbrand, seeing Galadriel ride off, follows.
(There is no Act Two break. At the end of the village battle when Galadriel sets off after Adar and the others look on with awe, the sun should’ve risen with a paused beat. Because of the orc sensitivity to light, the sun’s movement is almost a character. If the show will recognize the sunset, it must also note its rise. The story and the structure call out for it.)
A woodland horse chase commences. Galadriel whispers to her horse for more speed (as Jackson’s Arwen does). As she almost reaches Adar, Halbrand comes from the other direction and trips Adar’s horse with a spear. Crawling, Adar reaches for the dropped hilt, but Halbrand drives the spear tip through his hand. He asks Adar if he remembers him? No. Hoisting the spear, Halbrand’s death blow is stopped by Galadriel. Adar taunts him, and Halbrand struggles to resist.
(In later episodes, we’ll remember this beat. For the Season One overall Enneagram, this may be a key moment.)
At the village, the last orcs stand chained together in the shade. Valandil tells Isildur that the two of them are to ride with Commander Galadriel to track the remaining orcs. Ontamo, who had a tough fight, will remain behind to help the villagers.
In the barn, Galadriel interviews Adar. She calls him a Moriondor, Son of the Dark, one of the first orcs. He corrects her with their preferred name, Uruk. She knows he has a master. Where is Sauron?
Adar answers: After Morgoth’s defeat, Sauron attempted to heal the land and bring order. He wanted to craft a power of the Unseen World. Many followed him north, but something was missing.
Cut to the icy fortress in a thunder storm. The forge. Tortured skeletons.
Galadriel shivers with memories. Adar, protecting “his children”, claims to have killed Sauron. Immediately skeptical, Galadriel denies him a home, an elvish identity, and anything but slavery. She will kill all orcs, leaving Adar until last so that he can watch. He responds that he’s not the only elf consumed by darkness. His taunt works, and she lunges for his throat. Halbrand stops her. Leaving a thin slice on Adar’s neck, Galadriel picks up the cloth-wrapped hilt and walks out.
In a sunlit glade, Halbrand sits with Galadriel. They acknowledge that each stopped the other from going too far. The clarity of battle sustained them, and it’s a feeling they wish they could always have. Halbrand is called to the Queen. Galadriel wipes Adar’s blood from her brother’s dagger on the hilt’s covering.
Villagers feast at an open air table. Arondir escorts Bronwyn to meet the Queen. She thanks the Queen for saving her people. The Queen recognizes Bronwyn’s leadership and bravery.
SIX
She then introduces Halbrand to Bronwyn, who sees that he wears the insignia pouch on his armor. All go silent during the pause, and then he admits he’s the king they were promised. The Queen lifts a toast, and the villagers cheer.
SEVEN
Galadriel and Arondir stand to one side. She returns the hilt to him. He joins Theo sitting alone, and comforts him about his guilt. However, Theo also misses the power he felt when he had the hilt. Handing him the bundle, Arondir counsels him to free himself. Have Númenor toss it into the sea as they return home. Theo unwraps it, possibly for one last look. Inside is no hilt but a plain hatchet.
EIGHT
Cut to Waldreg, his arm ravaged. He has the hilt, and now it has a blade. At the sacrificial altar he plunges it into a key slot and twists. Some mechanism is activated. The dam at the watchtower begins to crumble. The water rushes into the valley and toward the village.
Berek, Isildur’s horse, whinnies. Elendil, whispering as Jackson’s Aragorn does, calms the horse. He learned it from Isildur’s mother, he explains. Rumbling interrupts their father/son moment. Water begins exploding out from the village tunnel system. The orcs in captivity start to chant, “Udûn.” Adar stretches out on the barn floor, listening to the water rushing underneath. It travels through the trench the orcs had made with elf labor and cascades through a hole into a lava pit below. The volcano erupts. (There was a volcano nearby?? OH! It’s Mount Doom!?)
NINE
The air blast disrupts everyone, and the orcs take their chance to break free. Meteors land in the feast. Galadriel stays calm as everyone around her runs for shelter. The ash wave comes right toward her. We see it burst open the barn door, although no Adar is chained there anymore. As she closes her eyes, Galadriel is engulfed when the molten cloud crashes over her like a wave.
Roll credits.
CRITICAL NOTES
Hey, some interesting structural choices happen in this episode!
Go back to Part One and look at the Two. The villagers collapse the tower. Now look at the Eight here. The orcs collapse everything around the tower, including the entire dam. Isn’t that great? What a beautiful development from a Two into an Eight! It’s the same visual — collapse a building — but enhanced with catastrophic consequences.
Now look at this Six — Halbrand recognized as King of the Southlands because of his pouch. Go back to the Three slot, which doesn’t exist. However, slide forward into what I identified as the Four. Who do we see right away? Halbrand, lying in his bunk. This shot of him currently serves no purpose, but imagine if he’d done something with his kingly insignia! His trepidation about acting as king is faced and resolved in the Five. His uncertainty could’ve used a boost by formally owning the Three slot.
And go one beat further into the Four. It’s Isildur with Berek. This relationship develops in Part Two, but for some reason the showrunners have placed it where it doesn’t belong, in the middle of the Eight. We don’t need Isildur and Elendil specifically to hear the rumbling; anyone would suffice. Move the horse scene back at the end of the Five. Let it separate Bronwyn’s congratulations, which is also Five stuff, from the Six — Halbrand accepting his fate — so that it can be properly emphasized. And don’t interrupt that impactful Seven as it unfolds into its Eight!
A lot of information is dropped in this episode. Finally — finally — Galadriel is called out on her harsh character. Real information about Sauron and the beginning of the orcs is given. Halbrand is no longer sneaky and secretive. A tighter structure would’ve helped squeeze the most feeling out of everything we need to learn.
This episode is very close to hitting the mark. I remember the first time I saw it thinking, “Yes! Fighting. Consequences. Where has this been all season long?”