Adrift

Actually found quite a bit of enjoyment out of it. Prince Durin and his wife were great additions and I loved the dialogue between them and Elrond. Nori continues to be my favorite character so far, and the scenes she had with that strange man from the fireball were fascinating. Arondir and Bronwyn grew on me this episode, and I even found Bronwyn's son to be entertaining. Some really good suspense moments throughout as well. Low point for me is Galadriel's story line. I don't find her likeable at all, and have no idea how she is gonna turn out to be the Galadriel we all love from Jackson's films.

I was so surprised by the difference in quality from the first and second episode, that I checked the writer for the 2nd, and low and behold, she was previously a BCS and BB writer. Doesn't surprise me that I found this episode to be much stronger.

It was a very good idea for Amazon to drop both episodes because if they dropped that 1st episode only, then I probably would've let this go by the wayside.

Adrift is a better episode than the choppy first, it is paced better, acted a little better and sets up the story going forwards. Like episode one, Nori is still the highlight so far, and I though the scenes with Elrond and Durin were pretty funny and well done. The scenes in Khazad-dûm were the best part of this episode, and they very much felt like they belonged in the Hobbit Trilogy. The sets and quality of the visuals during these scenes were fantastic, so props to the guys responsible for carrying these few episodes.

That being said, Galadriel is still boring, as is the elf warrior guy - Arondir and his weird relationship with Bronwyn.

We got an opening title, with was ok, but getting to hear Howard Shore do some more LotR music was a joy, and it's glad to see he hasn't lost his touch. The rest of the music, done by Bear McCreary is also very good, but this should be expected by the guy who composed the music to a much better Amazon show, The Outlander and the video game God of War.

Adrift was just fine, not great, not bad. I do hope the episodes get better going forwards, but I think Amazon should have released 3 episodes instead of 2, because I'm still not invested in these characters or the story.

This episode was even better than the previous one. It left me with many questions. Who is Halbrand? Is he evil or good? Then why did he rescue Galadriel?? She's been nasty to him from start.

I'm also so intrigued with meteor man. Good or evil? Did he kill the fireflies??

The Harfoots keep growing on me. Nori is such a great person!

And then Khazad-dûm. Ooooooooooooo my jaw dropped. Brilliant. Stunning. Gorgeous. The dwarves were no longer silly comic relief. They were real, with big feelings, a great culture. Not to toy with. Nobody tosses a dwarf!

And of course another cliffie lol. Can't wait for Ep3. <3.

Out of the two I watched, this one was my favorite so far. I enjoyed all of it. I was so immersed at the end that I did not wanted to end. I could watch the whole series in a single watch. It was that good and intriguing for me. I'm not saying it was perfect, but none of the nowadays TV shows are, so looking for perfection will be waste of time. The journey we're about to experience in the next 6 weeks will be very emotional and unpredictable. And I'm all here for it. Again the visuals, the music, the dialogues and acting was great. Any objective person will find something to like in the series. I just don't get the over-reacted hate. I believe over time, this series will be better appreciated and received. People seems to not be ready to tone down the negativity and just enjoy any series for what they are.

Progress is slow and the story is still thin. The political messages are delivered with the same intensity and the provokation is equal to the first episode. Galadriel is now established to be a real "Mary Sue" and loses credibility in the character, this is not Galadriel from Lord of the rings, this is a political message machine telling that this series is first and foremost for lbtq and neo feminists. I am not a Tolkien fanatic but it is clear to me that this series is not produced for followers of Tolkien. For my own part, the series is experienced as something I will still continue to watch. But just like last week, the acting is weak and the storyline is not sustainable. Some scenes are so ridiculous that you sit and get angry. But if you can swallow the thin story and the political messages, we can probably hang around until episode 3. It was fun to see a comeback from Lenny Henry, I didn't even think he was alive anymore. Our male Elf is uncomfortably similar to Don Lemmon on CNN, the connection is inevitable, hahaha. We'll give it a chance to improve until next week.