Alloyed

This story likes to dance around things that might reveal who a character is and what their motivations are, but it stops short of revealing exactly who that character is.

For example: there were three strange looking women that appeared, they were very interested in the crater left by the Stranger, and the Stranger himself.

Ultimately, their goals and intentions were revealed, and were not good. But just like us, they were fooled. In this case they had fooled themselves, and they fell into their own trap. And in doing so they gave us a few more clues to the identity of the "Stranger". We now know that if the Stranger was not who they believed he was, then in fact he was somebody, something else. Somebody who we hope that he is.

That seems to be the theme here, not just the theme of the show but it's also embedded in Tolkein's books and stories and appendices. Misdirection.

We have to remember that Sauron fooled ELVES, as wise and intelligent as they are, they fell for it. But mainly Galadriel fell for it. And when she fell for it, so too, us.

She was basically fed what she wanted to hear and that caused her to set upon a course of action that will affect the very landscape of not just middle earth but Numenor and all other lands from the stories.

A lot of people, when talking about this show, are distraught because they feel that "Tolkien is being rewritten".

This is not so. This is exactly what he wanted, although it never happened in his own time, it is happening now. He wanted other people to expand upon what he had already written. So his works, starting with the Silmarillion, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Rings appendices, and his several books of Lost Tales... They are a tapestry which gives us something to start with and to build upon.

As long as we don't stray too far from the themes and characters that have already been developed. And this show does a very good job of keeping to the stories that have already been written.

We forget that Tolkien wanted to write these stories because he felt that Britain had no mythology of its own. Thanks to Tolkien, now they do.

So the framework we are given here that started with The Hobbit and then Lord of the Rings, can be viewed as this new mythology.

Those of us who are familiar with the history of events from middle earth, can now see those events in much more detail. There were Catastrophes and Eucatastrophes all through the history of middle earth, bad things that happened and good things that happened.

And this season stops with one of the good things that happened, a eucatastrophe, even though it was surrounded by catastrophes.

In fact all through this episode some very horrible things have happened to most of the groups that are shown, but with each of those groups of people, the Elves in their city, The Harefoots as they travel with The Stranger, The Numinorians... something good develops from each of those catastrophes.

We are going to have to wait to check in with the fate of Durin's Folk and the Southrons.

An episode full of "revelations" that most already knew. There is action, there is progress in the plot and visual quality. It is part of what I look for when it comes to enjoying content, and as such I give it 5 points. From a plot point of view, it falters everywhere. It's amazing that when I think about it there's no particular story arc that I'm interested in seeing. I mean, there are jumps here and there in each plot line, but I could rather say which one catches my attention the least. That's one of the worst signs for me. I don't feel attached to most of the main characters, and neither do they themselves since they change their attitude every half chapter.

Frankly, the most expensively poor product in a long time.

So far i have been trying to like it, i think this episode meets all the expectations. The real plot and characters kick in now . The episode hade good cgi, twists , and complexity of characters.

Sauron is now known, More heroes will come soon. Isildur is awaited, gandlaf has been obviously in front of us. The rings are forming. There are plenty of characters to unfold. There might still be a chance that we have not seen Sauron yet. This episode suddenly taken you back in the LOTR triology feel.

The writing and dialogues are still weak and pretentious. At this point i do not hope to meet GOT or CROWN dialog standards.

Finally, dialogs that doesnt seems to have been written by corporative robots. We started to care about some characters that needed much more screen time.

This last episode give me hope for the next seasons because this one was a snooze fest that care more about checking boxes than developing characters. Finally, we have some writing that actually mean something aside from pretty quotes and advance a global narrative.

I dont care much about the chronological adaption. Yes, they squeeze 2000 years (ish) into one generation. But i think, it was necessary. Either that or kill every mortal each episode with a 100 year time jump. It would have been a nightmare, story wise.

The last episode doesnt redeemed the season, wich, in my opinion, was very badly paced with a bad focus. Some scenes were cringe and badly acted and scripted. While the visuals are always extremly pleasing, I did not care about any character aside from Durin and hi wife.

In this last episode, they had no choice to go full throttle, overcompensating perhaps for lack of rythm of the season.

One scene still drag for way too long and again, focused on the wrong characters.

I am hopefull for season 2. But please, kick the corporate boomer out of the writting room.

The whole season has really been very good. They poured all creative talents into the technical aspects and this material is deserving of all the money. But one thing had been missing. Some characters were not relatable and I couldn't get attached to anyone except Nori and Prince Durin. But this episode ties it all for me. Every single person on screen proved their worth and came guns blazing.

Sauron takeout, Nori's goodbye, Sauron's reveal, forging of the first rings are so so well crafted sequence and edited together very nicely.

I wish the episode was longer and showed us other characters too. I am also bummed that they couldn't give us one scene of what Earien saw.

Background score was something I had complains about too but it was leagues better in this episode.

I hope the orcs stop reviewing this and desecrating comments sections so actual fans can enjoy this show as much as movies.