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.

I'm impressed how the dwarven Kingdom in the mountain truly had the feeling of being real, an ecosystem, deep caverns, well done.

The relationship between the elf and dwarven friends is unique, showing how dwarves truly can be short tempered, and elves aloof of the differences of other races. I'm trying not to use too many spoilers here also.

The music in this episode set the tone at times.

The boy really seems to be playing with fire in this episode, and you would think he'd be more aware of it.... One of those scenes where you want to say to the character "what are you doing!?" The audience can tell it was obviously going to be a bad idea... But a character is thinking about it anyway.... And I generally find the younger actors are not all that convincing unfortunately.

This episode seemed more monotonous to me than the first. I think they missed the opportunity to create something that arouses the curiosity of those who are watching. I caught myself looking at my cell phone several times, because the dialogue scenes didn't hold my attention. In this second episode I realized that I don't like the cast either, the actors of Elrond and Galadriel don't bring me fidelity to what the actors of the 3 films brought. They sound very different from the movies and especially the books. The writers lacked research work to better understand the characters. As for the original characters, I felt the same emptiness in the dialogue and a failed attempt at trying to do something epic.

As some other people have pointed out this episode it quite a bit better then the previous episode but still nothing that will sell it to people who still have their doubts about the series.

Still some big adaptational changes. Most people have already made their clickbait youtube video about Dwarf woman and the fact that they don't have beards. I'm actually almost ok with this but it just gives me the thought of producers sitting in a boardroom discussing that Bearded woman would look weird and could possibly alienate some ethnicities/religions who would be offended with it and that offending Tolkienist would be a lesser evil. But whatever, it's mainstream entertainment and that just how it works so whatever.

What I found more vexing was when they told the story of Morgoth and the Silmarils and how their beauty nearly turned him from evil. Which is such a gigantic departure from Morgoth characterisation for no apparent reason. The Silmarillion makes it very clear that Morgoth only wants them since he can't create beautiful things for himself ("Evil cannot create it can only mock" as we have all had shoved down our throat for the last couple months on anything related to Rings of Power) and because they have the light of the trees in them, or in layman's terms he wants to steal the light/pride of the eldar. Whenever he sees something or someone else who is fair/beautiful he grows jealous and seeks to destroy/corrupt/dominate it. Maybe it's meant to show that Celebrimbor is ignorant to the dangers of creating someting of immense beauty/might which will lead to him becoming a banner (if you get this reference, I raise my glass to you) but still, since I don't know which direction the serie will go it just seems so wrong to me. We'll see if this part pays off (while it might seem strange that I just ranted like a lunatic about 2 lines of dialogue. But it really stood out to me).

As many have mentioned the scenes with the dwarves are a standout with some great acting and amazing effects and the southlands scenes are also good. Galadriel scenes are whatever and the stoors plot is a big whatever despite some fine acting. It feels way to detached from the rest of the series to actually make an impression. Maybe it will grow on me but for now it feels like a part they shoved in so they can have hobbits in the show.

Despite some improvements the show still feels average and with next episode most likely introducing a new subplot I'm afraid that the show will eventually lose it's focus.