Saturday, October 8, 2022

Rings of Power, “The Eye” - Part One, Review!

This episode of Rings of Power has the aftermath of the Mount Doom eruption in “The Eye”, part one, has the survivors gathering, some Stranger danger, and Durin IV makes a critical discovery!  Last ep we had the apocalyptic rise of Mount Doom!  We open with an ashen eye in a red glare, breathing, Galadriel is covered in ash, and turns to the side.  She looks around the hellish landscape, burning houses, fires; the Southlands are no more.  Then, a horse on fire races past her!  Galadriel sees bodies covered in ash like the Pompeii victims.   She hears cries of pain and shouts for Halbrand and Elendil.  Then, she hears Theo’s cry out for his mother and he staggers over to Galadriel.  Isildur is trying to free Valandil when Míriel calls him over to join the line of survivors.  Smart.  The objective is to collect everyone and not check on individuals.  She helps him free Valandil and he stares at the dead eyes of Ontamo, his death was obvious from his giving up being a soldier, but sad.  She points out to the soldiers to help a woman trapped in a house about to collapse.  

Her leadership skills here are admirable, she shifted immediately to rescue and recovery.  Isildur goes into the house to move a fallen beam and Míriel helps children out.  She givs them to Valandil and goes back in with Isildur.  Some burning debris falls on Míriel and she cries out in pain.  A burning beam falls on Isildur and the roof collapses!  This is a nice dramatic moment, the same with Aragorn falling off the cliff in Two Towers (2002), you know he survives, but there’s kinda tension.  Plus, this trio is very brave.  This shifts to Poppy singing a bit of a song as they finally reach the Grove.  Nori helps Poppy with her cart and smells wood smoke thinking it is baking.  They set the cart and see Sadoc in the middle of burned area. He tells them about the fire-rock which we know came from Mount Doom.  The Harfoots begin to pluck ashen fruit.  Sadoc asks Nori if she can ask The Stranger to help with the situation.  He goes on his own to ask the Stranger.  He is at a tree inspecting it.  Sadoc tells the others that he is speaking to the tree as the Harfoots watch.  The Stranger starts to say strange words forcefully.  


From the ash, orange veins appear in the tree, a stunned Dilly (Beau Cassidy), Nori's sister, is impressed that The Stranger is “fixing” the tree.  A branch starts to break and Nori pulls away Dilly!  The others pull away branches to free them and The Stranger just stares.  At Khazad-dûm, Elrond says to King Durin III, in exchange for mithril, the Elves will provide meat, grain, at elder forest wood for five centuries!  Other Dwarf lords (so three so far?  we need to see four more for their rings) whisper if this offer can be believed or trusted.  Elrond says they can trust in his word in Khazdul, the Dwarf “stone tongue.”  Durin III asks if the Elves can be honorable, Elrond bends the knee(!), and he pleads for help.  King Durin says he wants to talk to his son alone.  Durin III holds the corrupted, yellow leaf.  He doesn’t want to risk Dwarves in a collapsed mine and dig too deep.  Durin IV says that his friend, Elrond, is dying.  The king says that the Elves’ path is set and if they risk mining, everything will be lost including Middle-Earth!  Durin III says the fate of the Elves is sealed!

  


This angers Disa, hammering at a forge, angry at the king’s decision!  Um, don’t mess with Disa.  She suggests with the support of the other Dwarf lords, they can secretly mine mithril, and prove to Durin III that it is safe.  Her husband says that his father is also king and it would set an example for their children if he defies him.  Disa apologizes and Durin IV makes a mother-in-law joke, these scenes are very dramatic and at the end, funny!  Elrond enters, Durin IV just stands there, the answer is clear.  He tries to have Elrond over for dinner, but Elrond replies he must tell Gil-galad since the Elves’ time is over!  Durin IV sets down the leaf and says his goodbye, crushing moment!, he has tears in his eyes.  Elrond is about to say the Elvish word, but Durin IV knows it and says, “Namárië.”  This was Galadriel’s Lament for Gandalf in Fellowship of the Rings and also the poem in The Road Goes Ever On (1967).  Disa is tearful.  Elrond hands back the piece of mithril and leaves.  Durin IV sits at a table and throws the mithril next to the black-veined leaf and it heals the leaf! 


He can’t speak, Disa is stunned and rushes over, the leaf is completely healed!  There is hope!  Disa turns to Durin IV who shouts for Elrond. I think this entire scene will be my favorite of the series!  We see the orange-tinged, burning, former Southlands with Mount Doom in the distance, chugging volcano smoke. Watching Orcs from an overlook, Galadriel explains to Theo that the plan was to make a place for Orcs.  She calls it their “Shadow Land” and the name is also a very good song in the Lion King (1997) musical.  Theo wants to take back the land, but Galadriel says they don’t have the forces to reclaim it.  She forces Theo to realize the truth and blames herself for Mount Doom.  This is a strange pairing.  The Númenoreans and the surviving Southlanders make their retreat. Elendil watches them on horseback also defeated.  He recognizes Berek’s wound, but his rider, Isildur is not there.  He hears word of the queen regent and rides over to see her wounded face supported by Valandil.  Her expression and Valadil’s make Elendil ask about his son.  


Theo staggers around and thinks everyone is dead.  Galadriel is headed to the Númenorean camp on a hill where the surviviors might be found.  She says there were no Orcs when she was her age, she killed them, and Theo replies, “Good.”  Galadriel tells him not to have such vengeful thoughts that keeps evil inside.  He asks if he is a soldier and Galadriel holds out her sword.  Elendil walks, his look is indescribeable, Míriel rides his horse.  Valadril is at their side.  The come upon soldiers on horseback and standing guard.  She asks how long until they pass the smoke and realizes they have left it.  Elendil says they left it behind almost a mile back.  She’s blind!  Usually seers are blind like Tiresias.  At the grove, Sadoc says it is Greenwood the Great (the forest later becomes Mirkwood!), and shows The Stranger the way to Big Folk settlements.  He says Harfoots haven’t seen those stars in a thousand years.  The Stranger walks in that direction while Sadoc joins the Harfoots.  A yellow flower blooms in a tree.  His power does work and his connection to plants is like Radagast, the wizard played by Sylvester McCoy in the Hobbit films.     



The Stranger is about to leave and sees the Brandyfoot family and Poppy.  Nori gives him an apple.  Later, at the family hut, Nori regrets helping him which she tells to her mother, Marigold.  She is smoothing out the wheels for the carts and has resigned herself to be an ordinary Harfoot.  Nori looks up to the moon.  Night, underneath a shelter of a tree, Theo asks Galadriel about the people she knew, actually very talky now.  She mentions her brother, Finrod, and husband, Celeborn!, she was dancing in a glade when he saw her.  Celeborn whom we first saw in Lothlórien was played by Marton Csokas in FoTR.  Galadriel had met him, married (which she doesn’t mention), and then never saw him again?  She was secretive and now she tells details of her private life to anyone.  Theo picks himself up and tells Galadriel that she is not to blame for the events.  Instead, he takes responsibility for revealing the black hilt.  She says not to accuse himself which is exactly what she was doing herself!  Then, they hear Orcs walking with torches.  


Theo is about to draw the sword, but is stopped by Galadriel!  The Orcs pause.  One Orc walks above them and then starts sniffing.  He is asked what he senses and the Orc says ashes.  They leave and Galadriel tells Theo to rest for their jouney in the morning.  At the mines, Durin IV is slamming his pick axe into the rock with Elrond sitting nearby.  I think they both were hammering at the rock breaking rite.  Maybe Elves are not allowed to dig in such a sacred tunnel.  There is a rumble and dust pours down so the Dwarven prince has to wait until things settle.  Elrond offers his friend some water, but Durin IV panting, refuses, and says self-discipline helped him win their ritual.  His friend alludes to losing on purpose which Elrond says was just to talk with him.  Elrond admits he was “winded.”  Prince Durin gives in and takes the water flask.  He admits that Dwarves have secret names.  Elrond doesn’t want to hear the name until they reach the mithril.  “The Eye” weaves the three narratives together, pushing towards the finale, Míriel shows her courage and leadership, and Durin IV has found the hope for the Elves!      


Five Rings of Power out of Five!  


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