TV Review: "The Rings of Power: Shadow and Flame" (S2, Ep. 8)
The second season of Amazon's sprawling epic series comes to a satisfying, epic, and heartbreaking conclusion.
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Well, here we are at last, the conclusion of the second season of The Rings of Power. It has certainly been a wild ride in these eight episodes, as the series has become more sure of itself and given us a story that is dramatically resonant, beautifully rendered, and exquisitely acted. By the time that “Shadow and Flame” draws to a close we’re on the cusp of an even mightier conflict as the Elves of Lindon, the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm, and the Men of Númenor are poised to begin a truly titanic war with Sauron.
This was a finale marked by death and defeat. In Khazad-dûm King Durin finally manages to throw off the power of the Ring, just in time to have a fatal confrontation with the monstrous Balrog, thus granting it the name Durin’s Bane. Meanwhile Celebrimbor is slain by Sauron, who proceeds to turn Adar’s own children against him, leading to his demise at their hands. There are endings elsewhere, too, as Elendil flees to his domains after Pharazôn institutes an even more brutal crackdown on the Faithful and Nori parts ways from the Stranger, who at last discovers his true identity and the secrets of his power.
Yet there is light in this episode, too. The Elves of Eregion and Lindon are saved from annihilation by the timely arrival of a Dwarven army, and Galadriel is brought back from the brink of darkness by the timely intervention of Gil-galad and Elrond, the latter of whom overcomes his aversion to the Rings to use Nenya in the art of healing. The Stranger does, in the end, find himself and gets to share a nice chat and sing with Tom Bombadil, and the episode sees Gil-galad and the other Elves poised to take the battle to Sauron.
The tortured and deeply toxic relationship between Sauron and Celebrimbor has, as I’ve written repeatedly here, been the heart and soul of the season. It’s all been leading to this terrible moment in which the greatest of Elven-smiths, pierced by arrows and on the cusp of death, musters the strength to utter one last bit of resistance and rebellion against the being who has taken so much from him. It’s a truly extraordinary moment, filled with pathos and tragedy and sorrow. Charles Edwards once again gives a performance that can’t but make your heart ache, particularly his line about his vanished joy in hearing the kingfishers. There’s power here too, though, as he not only asserts that he goes to a place where his tormentor will never reach him but also speaks the truth that the future Dark Lord does not want to hear: that, far from being a master of the Rings of Power he will, instead, become their slave. The Lord of the Rings, as we know well, will become a position of imprisonment much more than power.
Visually this whole sequence is like a wound to the heart, and I don’t think I’ll ever recover either from the sight of Celebrimbor’s beloved body pierced by arrows or the sight of him impaled by a blade, his body held aloft. The Rings of Power has always been a show that knows how to execute a striking scene–the final shot of Durin leaping out to challenge the Balrog is a similarly striking tableau–and there’s something almost painterly about this one. In sadness, it seems, there is also great beauty.
For his part, Sauron is deeply wounded–in soul if not in body–by the fact that his companion and collaborator has defied him and has now passed beyond his reach. Celebrimbor might have been little more than a pawn in his hands, but I think his betrayal has damaged him more than he would have thought possible. After all, this is the second time that someone has turned away from the gifts that he offered. For a Maia this must be a particularly grievous insult, made all the worse by the fact that he really does seem to think that it is his gift and right to heal Middle-earth of its wounds. Like so many other tragic heroes in Tolkien’s mythos, however, Sauron ends up being the architect of his own demise, and his own fate will be an uncanny echo of Celebrimbor’s.
There’s also something remarkably poignant and heartbreaking about the last glimpse we have of proud Eregion. This city of beauty and craft has been reduced to nothing more than a smoking ruin, and the fact that it is Elrond who gazes upon it makes it all the more meaningful. This is an Elf, after all, who has already lost so much and has had to watch as years of learning are consigned to the flames thanks to the cruelty and malice and restless hate of the Orcs. (Speaking of that scene, I know I’m not the only one who found it a bit amusing that Elrond would willingly sacrifice his own life so that knowledge could be preserved. It’s so perfectly on-brand for him, and Robert Aramayo nails the scene). While we’ve seen the Orcs in a more complex light, the truth is that they are so broken by their torments at the hands of their makers that it’s unlikely that they’ll ever be able to be anything other than rapacious, for all that Adar seems to think that they have a brighter future ahead of them.
Speaking of Adar…it really was likewise wrenching to see him destroyed by the very children to whom he has devoted so much of his life. I knew from the moment that Sauron asked Glûg his name that this was going to be the endpoint. If there’s one thing that the Dark Lord has shown throughout these two seasons, it’s that he knows how to find the weakest point in his opponents and turn it to his advantage and, given the importance of names in Middle-earth, the fact that he goes out of his way to ask this of a lowly Uruk (even going so far as to call him that rather than, say, “Orc”) gives him a vital power, one that he uses to its full advantage. The fact that this death comes so soon after Adar–having regained his former beauty as a result of Nenya’s healing influence–offers Galadriel a lasting peace between their two kindreds just makes it all that much more devastating. Sam Hazeldine gave us a remarkable and original character, one literally gave up everything, including his own name, to be a father to his people. His end is, arguably, as tragic as that of Celebrimbor or any of the other great heroes of Tolkien’s world, and he shall be dearly missed.
The episode came to a climax with the duel between Galadriel and Sauron, one which saw him change shape in order to try to outwit and overcome her, before going so far as to stab her with Morgoth’s Crown and attempt to take Nenya from her. In the end, however, even Sauron’s dark arts weren’t enough to ensnare her, and she stayed true to herself, even going so far as to throw herself from a peak in order to keep it from his clutches (talk about an Elven gesture!) I personally love the way that this series has conceptualized the relationship between two of the most powerful beings in all of Middle-earth, adding much-needed depth and detail to the idea that of all of the Elves it was Galadriel who truly knew the mind of Sauron. When she tells him to heal himself before he even begins to think about doing the same to Middle-earth, you can practically hear him screaming in the echoing halls of his tortured soul.
Time and again this episode we saw characters reaching out for redemption, and it all began at the very start, with the two Durins finally squaring off against one another. Peter Mullen will be another much-missed member of the cast, but I truly am glad that we got to see his dignity and soul restored before his fatal and doomed assault on the Balrog. Owain Arthur, likewise, was a marvel, making the most of his limited screen time. The Dwarves, though, have their own sinister fate waiting for them, one that none of them–not Durin, not Disa, not Narvi–will be able to resist.
If I have one complaint about this finale, it’s that some parts of it felt a little rushed. This was particularly true when it comes to the Nori/Stranger storyline, in which a lot of stuff seems to have happened off-stage since the last time that we saw them. At some level I understand this, since the two of them have always been a bit ancillary to the stories elsewhere, but the fact that so much of their saga has taken place behind-the-scenes rather robs their eventual sundering of its emotional impact. That being said, I did enjoy the long-delayed revelation that the Stranger is, in fact, Gandalf, and I particularly loved the moment when he sits down with Tom for a bit of song. It’s an appropriately Tolkienian way of bringing this part of the story to a close.
For my part, I still think that the Dark Wizard is in fact Saruman, regardless of how much cold water the showrunners have thrown over that particular theory. I find it hard to believe that they would want us to invest so much time and energy on a character who will have no relevance to the broader story to come in the Third Age. Moreover, it’s important to remember that Saruman, like his Blue counterparts, did indeed spend some time in the East before finally returning to the West. And, just as importantly, Ciarán Hinds looks like Saruman (and acts like him, too, what with his efforts to convert Gandalf to his own way of thinking, which consists of brute strength rather than pity). I guess we'll just have to see how this pans out.
As others have noted, this episode feels as if there are some crucial pieces missing, and one gets the sense that some crucial connective tissue was cut in the interests of time. To take just one notable example, we somehow go from Celebrimbor and Sauron facing off with one another to the former filled with arrows. The storyline in Númenor likewise suffers a bit from being abbreviated, though the parting of Elendil and Míriel was as heartbreaking as one could desire, and the sight of the former riding off and looking behind him at the smoke rising in the sky was, like that of Elrond gazing at Eregion, particularly evocative. It was also nice to see Isildur get some closure, though his arc also ended with melancholy rather than happiness.
Suffice it to say that this is how a season finale should feel: filled with heartbreak and triumph, joy and sorrow, grief and celebration. Unlike House of the Dragon, which failed to make adequate or compelling use of its shortened season, The Rings of Power has once again shown that there is a lot of magic that can be wrought with just eight episodes.
\Just as importantly, the series has once again eschewed the bleak and grinding cynicism that is so often a part of the Martin sensibility to instead embrace the light. It’s particularly appropriate that the season ends with everyone gathered in a valley that will surely one day become Rivendell. Presented with the choice between retreating and regrouping or taking the fight to the Dark Lord and his new legions of Orcs–who have already had cause to discover that their new master is far crueler than their old one–Gil-galad, after nodding to Galadriel and Elrond, raises his sword and in doing so proclaims that the Elven spirit will not be so easily beaten. I particularly appreciated that Arondir was a part of this conclave (though how he recovered from his grievous wounds is one of those things that’s not explained), and I likewise liked that the ending of this season is so hopeful, as opposed to the sinister final scene of the first season, with its glimpse of Sauron making his way to Mordor.
In other words, I love The Rings of Power even more than I have before, and I truly do not know how I am going to get through the next two years until we get a season three. Somehow, though, we’ll persevere. There is always light after darkness.