There is lots of the feminist message and diversity, but also some sense of humour and the fairy tale Victorian London (it has as much to do with historical London as Bridgerton's Regency with the real Regency period, but we know it and watch it tongue in cheek) is a real eye candy. Great that Enola and Tewkesbury are finally on the good road to becoming an item :)
I am new to Star Trek and I really liked the storyline in this episode as we learn more about the Vulcan culture and Spock himself, the character I am most curious about since he is the only person not coming from Earth among the Enterprise crew.
The episode was quite suspenseful at times but overall it was too lengthy, they could have divided it into a couple of shorter episodes. I like watching everything in one sitting and I was just waiting for the resolution because the show is quite engrossing so I really had to know. It is really sad what happens to Max at the end since it looks like she is going to live in a coma. There were some moving scenes like Dustin's conversation with Eddie's uncle or Eleven's reunion with Hopper. Though it looks like the characters are in for a real serious trouble next season, I've heard it is going to be the last one so probably there will be a Shakespearean ending of "everyone dies".
The episode was pretty intense, with the backstory of Vecna told in full, there is good news and bad news. Good news is that Eleven didn't actually kill these kids, but the bad news is that the assistant who was kind of helping her turned out to be the monster, after she freed him, he killed all these children and told her he was in fact Creel's son who had superpowers and was responsible for the deaths in his family. Eleven managed to defeat him, summoning the memory of her biological mother saying that she loved her, in a way this is the callback to Harry Potter and Lily's love saving Harry from death. But the bad news is El sort of created Vecna as she apparently sent him to the Upside Down dimension to rid the world of him. Another bad news is that after the kids (Dustin et consortes, Erica now participates in the plot but I am a bit worried about Max since she is now at the margins of the story) manage to rescue the adults from the Upside Down, Nancy gets stuck there and ends up in the Creel house. Good news is that Hopper is saved from a demogorgon and he and Joyce are reunited.
The Upside Down is really Mordor-creepy and I guess Sauron would totally approve ;) It looks like the showrunners of The Rings of Power could learn a thing or two here.
There are Tolkien references in the episode! Dustin and Eddie mention the Shire and Mordor and later on, when the adults in the gang find the entrance to Vecna's underwater lair, Steve has a "fly you fools" moment when he is dragged back to the Upside Down world by some tentacles just like Gandalf is dragged down by the balrog's whip. The others don't fly though but follow him underground.
Other breaking news from the episode:
Jason gives the pep talk to the Hawkins community and inspires the people to go hunting for Eddie. You have to hand it to him that he is a great leader. In the end of this storyline, Dustin gets caught by the police.
Eleven has to relieve her memories in order to regain her powers and it turns out that she in fact DID kill the kids from the institute for gifted children who were bullying her. So there is some seed of evil in her after all. It is a bit sad to know what she really killed them since I hoped it was only some nightmare of hers. I wonder if she could be targeted by Vecna now that she has a really dark secret in her past? It would make her a perfect victim of the monster, feeding on guilt and pangs of conscience.
The other team with Mike, Will and Jonathan finally reach Susie; her family is hilarious as well as the plot they come up with to get access to the computer; though I wonder why they couldn't have used just any computer? or were computers so rare to find back then?
In the Russian plot, Joyce and Murray break free and find a way to make Yuri show them the way to the prison whereas Hopper explains the demogorgon stuff to the other prisoners and come up with the idea how to slay the monster.
I'm a bit on the fence about this episode because it wasn't even half as intense as the previous one. It mainly concentrates on Eleven's training in a n underground base which looks a bit tardisy unil Brenner appears and Eleven is forced to re-live her past in some form of an experiment. At the end of the experiment, she breaks free and tries to escape the underground base, but as she finally releases her power and knocks out the guards, she is confronted by Brenner and in the end she agrees to come back to the base with him and continue the training, she also begins to call him "Papa" again, so in a way it seems that she accepted her past and does not rebel against it anymore.
Nancy recognises the Creel mansion in the pictures Max has been drawing, and the crew set off to visit the haunted house, where they finally locate the lair of the monster. Max and Lucas reconnect during the search for Vecna, which is great, though I am not sure whether it was a good idea to take Max for a trip to the monster's mansion just after she barely escaped his clutches and is still reeling from her ordeal.
The preview of the episode said that Vecna claims another victim and luckily it is not someone we like as the lot goes to some guy from the baskeball team chasing Eddie. He only sees and hears the clock but we don't get to know what Vecna tortures him with as any other visions than the clock are not shown, he is killed during the chase after Eddie, which probably saves Eddie, but the viewer never gets to care about the guy who is killed. So there is nothing emotional about this death and in a sense Vecna killings are starting to become a commonplace occurence in Hawkins. In a way it cheapens the threat of this monster somehow.
I agree with the other reviews that the Russian subplot is totally unnecessary and even a bit jarring in comparison to the rest of the story as it takes the focus away from the main plot of the fight against the monster. I usually fast-forward it when watching an episode, though Hopper's confession to this ex-guard and now co-prisoner was a bit moving and I watched it at normal pace.
The episode was very emotional, especially the scene when Max reads her letter to her late brother Billy was quite moving. The ending was quite suspenseful, I was not sure whether Max would make it to the escape way in time, I thought that maybe the monster would catch her in the last moment or the escape window would close because the song ends or something to this effect. Luckily, the power of friendships wins over evil and I am really glad as Max is one of my favourite characters and it would be sad to see her go, especially in such a way. I wonder whether the monster can target her again or is it more of a hit-and-go thing for the big baddie?
The story of Victor Creel was creepy but sad and tragic too. Though there were funny moments in the episode as well, Robin convincing the professor to let them talk to Victor looked hilarious, and she did much better job than Nancy as she finally get them the meeting with Victor.
I somehow found this episode less interesting than the previous one, though a lot of happens here, too. I guess the episodes should be shorter, I like to watch an episode in one go and it is really hard with this show. Also, there is some filler stuff like Jonathan's conversations with his friend about his love life.
Chrissie is found dead, so police investigation starts, but our characters investigate as well. There are several teams:
-Lucas is with the baskeball team and the guy who is the captain of the team dated Chrissie and now believes that Eddie killed her so he and his team decide to hunt Eddie down and revenge Chrissie.
We have the second victim in Nancy's nerdy assisstant, who starts seeing creepy people accusing him of being a murderer and at the end he has his arms and legs broken and is dead just like Chrissie. Nancy shows some journalist skill in questioning Eddie's uncle who tells her the story of a local psychopath.
Mike comes to visit El but instead of having a romantic date with her boyfriend, she get humilitated by Angela and the rest of the buddies. El takes revenge on Angela by hitting her on the face with a rollerskate, with the callback to her past when she supposedly kills all other kids who participated in the experiment (what about these gifted kids whom she met when she escaped from Hawkins in I think season 1? they couldn't have been killed as she wouldn't meet them otherwise)
Joyce and Murray investigate the letter Joyce found in the doll and decide to call the number given in the letter (Murray uses some kind of pre-VPN to hide their location) and get in touch with a guy who is a guard in a Russian prison where Hopper ended up. And monsters will be monsters but the real scary thing in the show is the Russian prison since this is what is really happening to some Ucrainian people right now who ended in Russian prisons. The Russians are the real monsters here.
It's a long time since I last checked what happened to the kids from Hawkins and it turns out a lot has changed in their lives as they went to high school and turned into teenagers. It seems that Eleven and Max are in the worst situation of all the gang, since El is bullied by the students in her new school (and even though Will is in the same class as she is, he does not really support her) whereas Max suffers from depression and grief after Billy's death and retreats to her own world of music. She and Lucas apparently split, and as for Lucas, hs is the one who changed most from all of the gang, I hardly recognised him.
There is a new character of Eddie, who leads the D&D sessions the boys participate in, until the basketball championship coincides with a gaming session and Lucas elects to take part in the basketball match so that he can stop being a nerd and join the popular folks at school. The boys have to find a replacement for the D&D session and they choose Luke's little sister, who turns out to be an avid gamer. The scenes of the final match and the D&D session are quite exciting, as it seems that both the gamers and the athletes are going to lose, but Luke gets the winning score while his sis casts the dice that wins the whole campaign so it was a nice juxtaposition. There was also another nice juxtaposition when Nancy and Jonathan are far from each other, yet they finish each other sentences and profess their love for each other ;)
Joyce gets a secret message stating that Hopper is alive, which is hidden in a Russian doll. I've read in the spoilers that Hopper is captured by the Russians and taking into account the current geopolitical situation, it would be very hard to watch him in Russian prison as it now hits too close to home. I turn down the volume when I hear the Russian tunes in the show.
There was another new character, one of the cheerleaders called Chrissie, who seemed to be suffering from some kind of nightmares but in waking life, in which a monster taunts her and calls her names (he takes the form of her parents so the girl definitely had some trauma or abuse), and it seems it is happening only in her head, but as she goes to Eddie to buy some drugs so that she can get rid of these nightmares, the monster catches up with her and it seems like she's toast after one episode. The scene in which she is killed looked pretty horrible, much darker than anything shown in the previous seasons.
I've returned to the show after a long break and now I see it was a mistake to take this break from watching it. Game of Thrones Charles Dance steals the show (or at least the episode) as Lord Mountbatten, it is a great role. I am not well-versed in the 20th century British history, so the episode was also quite suspenseful as I was not sure whether they would actually proceed with the coup. It was a bit humorous when Lord Mountbatten made the conspirators aware that such a coup would be completely impossible in Britain, unless they had the support of the Queen, which they finally don't get as she decides to support democracy and the law - thouhg I wonder whether she did what she did because the Prime Minister got to her first and to some extend threatened her to try and remove support for the royal family?
It is great to see Lord Mountbatten reconnect with his sister as well as to see the relationship between the queen and Phillip on the mend. Though I guess the fact that she travels to France and America with Porchey to find out more about modern horse breeding while there is an economic crisis in Britain does not show her in good light. Though I liked the scene when she had a heart-to-heart with Porchey and told him what life she would like to lead had she not became the queen.
It is a bit strange to watch the show about the queen after she is gone, I am not British but I am a fan of everything British and she was someone who has always been there and it was quite sad when she passed away, I guess what the British people must have felt, was it like we in Poland experienced when John Paul II died? After all, the queen was also a religious leader, though she is not often depicted in this capacity in the show.
I don't watch this show, but I've read in a magazine that in one of the episodes the characters meet Tolkien, so I decided to watch it since he is my favourite author.
However, Tolkien himself does not come Tolkien-like at all, he could have been anyone as I don't believe the real Tolkien would have behaved in the way shown in the episode. I am Catholic as Tolkien was and I believe for him the blood of Jesus would be the most holy thing, not to be used as a means to an end, no matter how noble in itself. It would be the most priceless relic to Tolkien and I don't think he would have helped the characters so readily to obtain it.
The protagonists say phrases which are reminiscent of what appears later in LotR (though they include allusions to Aragorn's speech at the Black Gate, which actually appears only in Peter Jackson's movie and not in Tolkien's novel, so somebody has not done their research right) in a way that is endearing at times but more often sound cheap. And anyway the eponymous spear is the most Tolkien-like artifact here, though I didn't like the characters very much and didn't care for any of them (maybe because I haven't watched earlier episodes), they all feel bland and uninteresting, only the conflicted African woman seems a more complex character.
Anyway, the protagonists healed Tolkien of his trench fever and returned him to the battlefield, but now that he is healthy, he would have to continue fighting and may get killed, so LotR might never be written. Nice job breaking it, heroes.
This last episode of the first season focuses solely on Rhaenyra and her family and supporters. After Rhaenys informs her about her father's death and Alicent's move of crowning Aegon as king, Rhaenyra has a stillbirth and loses her baby. This will not be the last child she lost in the episode, though. There is a strong conflict betweenn Rhaenyra and her husband, as Daemon want to take a more aggressive approach and use dragons in warfare, while Rhaenyra, in contrast to what Dany did centuries later, does not want to be the queen of bones and ashes and tries to think first of what is good for the realm as a whole (hint: not an open war with dragons burning everything in their wake). However, Daemon even tries to choke her as she begins to tell him the story of the Song of Ice and Fire. Rhaenyra seems to be a reasonable ruler as she intends to gather her allies first and then decide what would be best for the kingdom as a whole. It turns out that Corlys Velaryon is alive, and he finally declares for Rhaenyra and offers to use his fleet to block King's Landing, he also appears to have defeated the Triarchy, giving Rhaenyra's team control over the Narrow Sea.
The episode ends with a tragedy as Rhaenyra's son Lucerys is killed. The young princes volunteer to deliver the messages to the supposed allies as dragons would be faster than ravens, and even though she is initially reluctant do to so, Rhaenyra eventually agrees and sends her sons as messengers. Before they leave on the dragons, she gives them short advice how to approach each of the lords they are going to meet, and makes them swear on the Seven not to start fighting and bloodshed. Lucerys' older brother was supposed to go to the Starks and it is a bit of a pity that they were not shows as I rather miss them in this series as a Stark supporter ;) However, when Lucerys comes to Storm's End, it turns out that Aemond has already come there on Vhagar and presented Baratheons with a better offer, so Lucerys' message is rejected. However, Aemond starts taunting him and demands to have his eye, it is only the lord of the castle that prevents the bloodshed. There is no happy ending, however, as Aemond begins to chase Lucerys on his dragon Vhagar, it looks like they lose control of their dragons and Lucerys' dragon breathes fire on Vhagar and she in turn attacks him, killing the dragon and Lucerys in the process. The dragon chase was very emotional since it was clear that Lucerys' dragon did not stand a chance against Vhagar, and there were moments when there was hope he might escape and evade the bigger dragon. The war is about to start as when Rhaenyra is told of her son's death, her face totally changes and it is clear she is done with her peaceful approach and now wants revenge and blood.
The episode was visually stunning as per usual, especially the atmospheric castles of Dragonstone and Storm's End, I also loved the imagery of the famous stone table with the map of Westeros heated by fire so that the map gives light. The scene when one of the twin brothers from the Kingsguard bring Rhaenyra the crown and acknowledges her as the queen (just after she's lost her stillborn baby) is great too.
There are some threads left hanging as Rhaenyra's decision as to what answer give to Otto Hightower's message (she seemed to be moved by the leaf from the book they read together with Alicent as children and maybe this is what made her choose the peaceful way in this episode, though after Lucerys' death her answer would be rather violent now) and the dragon Daemon meets undeground (I suppose he sang in high valyrian to the dragon?) - I haven't read the books yet so I have no idea.
The season really ended on a cliffhanger so I have no choice but to read the book before second season drops, instead of waiting a couple of years for it to appear.
Great episode, stunning visuals as usual and beautiful music, especially at the beginning of the episode, when there is silence before the storm before the king's death is know. It was suspenseful and engrossing from the very first moment to the surprising ending. Alicent believes that Viserys wanted her son Aegon to become king and intends to have him crowned, but in spite of this, even she is a bit shocked that the rest of the council under the leadership of her lord father has been plotting to supplant Aegon as heir for some time already. One of the lords who are against this gets killed by Ser Criston. Alicent wants her son to be king but doesn't approve of the violent means her father wants to use, and is against having Rhaenyra killed as the Hand wishes.
Prince Aegon is found missing and so a compeition ensues, a sort of race who gets to him first, the Kingsguard sent by Otto or Ser Criston and Aemond acting on Alicent's orders. Apparently the woman who used to be Daemon's whore at the beginning of the season is now an influential person in the underworld, nicknamed the White Worm, and knows where the prince is. The Hand's party get him first but he escapes them and in the end the Queen's party get him, so Alicent announces her father now everything would be as she wants it. Aegon doesn't want to be king and his younger brother believes he would be more suited to rule, but in the end he brings his brother to his mother.
Alicent is an interesting character in this episode, as she takes part in the plotting but opts for a more peaceful version of the power grab that her father would prefer, hence the conflict between them. She even tries to talk Rheanys to support her in the name of peace and less bloodshed in the kingdom. Her father accuses her that she doesn't want to have Rhaenrya killed more out of liking for her as her childhood friend than because her late husband wouldn't like to have his daughter killed. Rhaenys tells her that Alicent really doesn't want the power for herself, but always for the men around her and it seems to make Alicent think a bit on this matter, though in the end she goes on with the coronation of Aegon all the same. On the other hand, she seems to be moved by her husband's death since she cries when she is alone so that it is not for show. Though she might be afraid about her position now as well. Larys offers her to kill her ladies-in-waiting and other people who may be spying for her father and it is not clear whether she agreed, though the fire in one of the buildings suggests she did.
The coronation is really visually stunning, though I am not sure whether Aegon would be a good king and wouldn't have the people who helped him get the throne killed if he has the mood, as one of the Kingsguard noticed that when he was a prince he had a proclivity for violence. Alicent asks him not to have Rhaenyra killed but I don't think he would follow his mother's advice.
The ending was surprising as one of the Kingsguard helped Rhaenys to escape from the palace where she was imprisoned, and she witnessed the coronation of Aegon dressed as one of the smallfolk, though at the end she slipped out and returned on the back of her dragon. However, instead of dracarysing everyone present, she just flew away. This was a bit disappointing as she only showed them she could have killed them but now they are alive they may have their revenge on her and her family and she may regret not using her chance to get rid of them.
I really missed Rhaenyra and Daemon, I wonder what they are up to? Hope we'll find out next episode.
This episode was an improvement on the all others in the show, it seems there was less nonsense than in the earlier parts, and some vistas were really visually stunning, I love the forges of Eregion, they are definitely beautiful to look at. There is nothing at all about dwarves, which is a bit of a pity since the making of the dwarven rings could have been shown as well, but the focus is on the Elven smiths of Eregion and the forging of the Elven rings. Soon after being healed, Halbrand starts taking shop with Celebrimbor and giving him advice about forging the one piece of mithril the Elves have, soon they start to work together but Galadriel gets suspicious of him and gets intel on the kings of the Southlands. When she confronts him about his identity, Galadriel gets a strange mind trip in which Halbrand reveals himself to be Sauron and even offers Galadriel to be his queen and rule Middle-Earth alongside with him (using the words Galadriel says in FotR when tempted by the ring). She rejects him and goes to warn the smiths. By this time, Sauron is already gone on his way to Mordor. It is Galadriel's idea to make three rings to help Elves stay the decay, which are created out of Galadriel's dagger and Elrond's mithril piece. The forging scenes are visually impressive and a total eye-candy, though perhaps they don't have much in common with the real smithying business. Galadriel was much less irritating now, though it was silly of her to risk a direct confrontation with Sauron, it could have ended much worse for her than it actually happened. I guess Sauron must have had some soft spot for her as he didn't hurt her in any way even though she discovered his identity.
The sauronists find the Stranger and first they hail him as Sauron but when he does not live up to their expectations, they decide to bind him. This is when the hobbits find him and want to rescue him, and it is Nori who finally talks him into standing the side of the Good, as a result he banishes the sauronists to the darkness (they look a bit like the Nazgul then but there had been no Nazgul back then) and is revealed as one of the Istari. Finally, Nori's family encourages her to go on an adventure with the Stranger, and there are long goodbyes with her family and her bestie Poppy, which could have been shorter, the showrunners apparently wanted to mirror the long ending of RotK, but it didn't work this time. As they set off, the Stranger uses Gandalf's words about always following your nose, known from the scene in FotR in the Mines of Moria, suggesting he might be Gandalf.
Minor Numenorean things:
- Pharason orders the painting of the dying king to be done, and Elendil's daughter is the one to hear his last words, in which he mistakes her for Miriel and warns her of the fall of Numenor, if they would not return to the ways of the Faithful;
The episode was very intensive and character-driven as it has been the case in this first season of the show. Rhaenyra and Daemon (who have two children together by this time) return to King's Landing as they got news that Corlys' brother wants to put a claim to Driftmark and declare her sons illegitimate. She seems distraught by that as she offers Rhaenys the marriage of her granddaughters to her sons, respectively, and pleads with her father, asking him whether the story of Aegon's dream was really true.
The political plots are interesting but the ailing king Viserys really steals the show, he suffers terribly from some kind of disease which leaves him covered in ulcers, and while he gets milk of the poppy for the pain, Alicent and her lord father are the real rulers of the kingdom. Alicent's became very religious and installed the stars of the Seven everywhere and introduced prayers before meals. She seems understanding towards a serving maid her son took advantage of, but I am not sure whether she didn't have the girl killed behind the scenes as she doesn't appear at work the next day.
As I said, the king is the biggest star of the episode, and the scene in which he surprises everyone by walking to the throne room and then sitting on the Iron Throne is really impressive. The king has shown some pluck and courage at last, as we can guess he suffers a lot doing that since he didn't take the milk of the poppy to keep his mind clear. It is sad to watch how he has to walk all this long way to the Iron Throne alone and nobody runs to help him, only Daemon aids him to climb the throne itself at the end. Rhaenrys seems to care about her father but does not help him walk to the throne, so she is just thhinking about what is there for her to gain. He declares that Rhaenys is the one who knows best Corlys's plans about succession and a bit suprisingly, Rhaenys supports Rhaenyra, with the result of the king declaring Lucerys the heir to the Dragonstone. Corlys' brother accuses Rhaenrya's children of being bastards and the king orders his tounge to be cut off, though Daemon slices his head so that the tounge remains whole. He is not punished for that in any way so I guess it was OK with the king.
The king also orders a dinner for all the members of his family, himself included, and makes a speech calling upon them to make peace among themselves to honour him, and initially they do so, starting with Rhaenyra praising Alicent for caring for the king, and Alicent reciprocates by praising Rhaenrya as a mother, and others follow, but the words are not sincere as when the king is too weak to stay any longer, Alicent's eldest son launches a verbal attack on Rhaenyra's boys and there is a short fight.
It looks like the king is dying, and in his last words he says that the story is true, and the listener is the prince that was promised, but it is nor Rhaenryra who is listening, but Alicent. She takes it that it is the king's will that their son Aegon is to be the next ruler of Westeros, so I guess the war will begin for real in the next episode. Though the old king was quite moving this episode, still supportive of his daughter and wanting his whole family to make peace. Also, the story of Aegon's dreams seemed to be very important to him and it was the thing he clung to in the last moments of his life.
Things are really rotten in the land of Middle-Earth as anything which might have been a success turns quickly into ash, sometimes quite literally. Galadriel waxes a bit melancholic and when she rescues Theo, she talks of some philosophical subjects to him, such as not to take too much joy in slaying when you are a soldier because you may turn to the dark side then or how to understand what is the good in having one's home destroyed like it happened to Theo. She seems a bit on the mend as far as her awful character is concerned but it is not enough yet to make her the Galadriel we know.
The hobbits reach what is to become Mirkwood and found some trees destroyed and the area is rather desolate which is bad since it is here they used to stock up for the winter. The Stranger heals the tree and the next day the hobbits wake up to a bountiful gardens and orchards so they gather a lot of vittles; it goes litterally to ash later on, as Nori attracts the attention of the creepy sauronists who burn the entire Harfoot camp in retailiation when her dad wants to defend her. Nori's dad gives the Harfoots a pep-talk that they always stick together and help each other which sounds really nice, but nothing so far seems to corroborate that. Finally, Malva and Sadoc agree to accompany the girls, who want to warn the meteor men about the sauronists. Maybe they want to make up for the past behaviour towards Nori.
I didn't like the Elrond and Durin plot in this episode, whereas Durin the king takes a right decision not to re-open the mithril mines and risk the safety of his people to help the elves (as was the king's duty to put his people first and protect them), Durin jr. disobeys his father by re-opening the said mine in secret and goes there to dig with his best buddy Elrond, which is quite irresponsible as he is the heir to the throne and is risking his life because the piece of mithril healed the leaf; but what is even worse, he disobeys his father and his king in what could be construed as high treason. Things get even worse when his father tells him a story of how his mother worried because he had been a sickly child and how he saw the future king in his baby son, but Durin jr. answers that by offending his father with cruel words. No wonder the king removed Durin from succession. And Disa turns Lady-Macbethy, telling her husband that he is destined to be the king and the mithril mines will be theirs. I really disliked Disa in this episode, as she tries to instigate Durin jr. against his father and finally succeeds. Gone is the gentle peacemaker from the early episode, and now we have a power-greedy Disa :( Durin the king was right in his decision, as we get a glimpse of the balrog when he throws away the leaf. I hope the showrunners won't have him awake too early (though obviously they don't care about chronology a whit so probably they'll do somthing just like that).
As far as smaller plotlines are concerned:
- Theo returns to the Numenorean camp and find his mother and Arondir alive, well and apparently not even scratched; Brownyn's dress must be fireproof, I want that; Galadriel gives him her sword and now he wants to become a soldier;
- Halbrand is found seriously wounded but Galadriel says he could be healed with elvish medicine so they leave together and ride towards the sunset (well, not literally but you get the meaning) with the remnants of the Southlanders hailing him as their king; they intend to go to Pelargir which is called an abandoned Numenorean outpost but wasn't it actually inhabited by the Black Numenoreans by this time?
- Tar-Miriel takes part in a rescue mission of some peasants from a burning house and loses her eyesight as a result, which seems a huge overlook and dereliction of duty on the side of Elendil and other commanders not to have protected their queen and instead let such a situation to happen. Miriel vows revenge on everyone who caused the situation in Southlands and promises to return with Numenorean army.
- Adar appears at the end of the episode and names the country Mordor (I still cannot forgive Adar for not having killed Galadriel so that she could reincarnate into the book!Galadriel);
I saved the worst things until the end, but these are really bad and turn the future of Middle-Earth upside down:
- Isildur is apparently dead (though his horse doesn't want to leave for Numenor and Elendil has to let it loose so maybe it senses Isildur)
- Celeborn is also dead, killed in some unnamed battle according to what Galadriel tells Theo.
This is a neat cut since the showrunners deprived their version of Middle-Earth (since it is obviously not Tolkien's) of the ancestors of both Aragorn and Arwen, respectively. Just imagine how the Third Age and LotR would look like without these two.
The episode starts very slow, with everyone gathered on the funeral of Laena (who gets buried in the sea according to Velaryon custom, with no dracarysing) and it continues to be slow-paced (maybe apart from Rhaenyra's tryst with Daemon, her confessing to him that her sons are indeed bastards, and their intimate time together) until one of the princes (later it turns out it was Alicent's younger son who couldn't get a dragon) approaches sleeping Vhagar and manages to fly her, thus claming her for himself. Later on, Laena's daughters discover that someone stole Vhagar and go to confront the prince, together with Rhaenera's boys and a fight between children begins, which soon turns deadly when one of Rhaenyra's boys takes out a dagger and attacks the prince, with the result that the kid loses his eye.
The conflict escalates further between the adults, when Rhaenrya justifies her son by saying that the prince called him a bastard so he had to defend his good name. The king keeps his daughter's side and demands to know who spreads the "lies" about the bastard origins of her sons. However, the situation escalates even further as Alicent demands "an eye for an eye" and wants that Rhaenyra's son has his eye cut off in retaliation, but even Ser Criston, who is now on her side, doesn't want to follow this command. So Alicent herself attacks Rhaenyra and manages to wound her with a Valyrian dagger. However, Alicent's dad, who is now back at court as the Hand, does not criticise her for the outburst, but in some sense praises her for having learnt how to play the game of thrones. Further on, Alicent continues to plot with Larys and offers him some advancement in the future.
Rhaenyra speaks with Daemon and offers him his hand in marriage again, this time in earnest and not in some sort of flirting as she did when she was a girl, as they would have a stronger claim to the Iron Throne together. They only need to get rid of Laenor who stands in their way. After the fight between the children and the incident with Alicent, he seems a bit penitent and promises to Rhaenyra to be a better husband and to support her boys more in the future and give up his pleasures for a time. However, Daemon hires a guy (I guess he was Laenor's lover?) to assassinate him so that he and Rhaenyra could marry, there is a fray and I think this guy kills someone else as he and Laenor are shown escaping in the boat together in the end, but it happened so fast I am not sure whom they killed, I would have to rewatch. Daemon in Rhaenyra do get married in some sort of ceremony when the blood of the bride and the bridegroom is mixed, it may be some old Valyrian custom as it definitely isn't according to the Faith of the Seven. I wonder if their marriage would be valid in Westeros? And it seemed that Alicent was cruel and aggressive but now it looks like Rhaenrya is just as bad to kill some innocent person to further her claim and realise her plans. This is the world of Game of thrones so perhaps I shouldn't complain about cruelty but some of the people here behaved themselves to a certain extend very well according to Westerosi standards.
This episode mostly concentrated on various affrays between the people from the Southlands under the leadership of Arondir and the orcs led by Adar. After seemignly easy victory with the tower, the folks prepare to defend themselves in their village, and they are already celebrating victory when they found out that they were really fighting the people who joined Adar's team in the previous episode and not the orcs themselves. Then the real orcs come with Adar and finally force Theo to reveal where the sword hilt is hidden by threatening to kill his mother. Adar orders to kill all the villagers all the same and they are saved only by the Numenorean cavalry that charges at the orcs in the nick of time. This felt a bit forced and a "deus ex machina" type of plot device. It is good they saved them, though.
Galadriel interrogates the captured Adar but he does not confess to being Sauron, instead he says he is one of the elves turned into orcs and that he helped Sauron in his experiments; according to him, Sauron wanted to save Middle-Earth by creating orcs. Adar claims that he had killed Sauron. Galadriel swears to wipe all orcs from Middle-Earth and kill Adar last and is about to slay him when Halbrand stops her, just like she stopped him when he had wanted to kill Adar after he captured him escaping with what they had thought then was the hilt of the magic sword. There was some creepy conversation between the two men, hinting at their history together and suggesting Halbrand may be Sauron and so his overlord. Adar may probably be lying to protect Sauron if he is so loyal to him. Though it is strange that he plants some seeds before battle and uses the same words with the same custom as Arondir later tells Bronwyn. So it looks like he is a bit clinging to his elven ancestry even in spite of all his evil.
Somebody's been doing some reading, since Bronwyn almost quotes Sam's words from LotR to cheer up Theo before the battle. This was rather a nice touch though it did not fit very well as Bronwyn's people are supposed to be ancestors of Morgoth's followers and this concept does not feel like them very much. I liked the later scene with Elendil calming Isildur's horse and telling him he learnt it from his mother (who apparently drowned, from what I recall nothing is written by Tolkien about Elendil's wife so anything goes here). Though at times the show starts using more advanced and poetic vocabulary and turn of phrase, more fitting for a Tolkien show than in previous episodes.
Galadriel and Halbrand have a creepy conversation which sounds a bit as if they were infatuated with each other, which is really bad news if he really is Sauron, since the book!Galadriel was the person who never trusted Sauron in his guise of Annatar, in contrast to other elves, so it would be very offensive to Tolkien fans to make her so gullible. Halbrand uses the word "bind" which seems very Sauron-y thing to do, though it may also seem romantic in the sense of forming a love relationship. In Peter Jackson's film, this word is used in conversation between Arwen and Aragorn to mean their love and devotion to each other. Anyway, Galadriel's romance with Halbrand is off-limits even if he turns out to be an ordinary mortal Man (Galadriel should have been married to Celeborn and have Celebrian with him; Celebrian is Arwen's mother so without Galadriel's marriage there would be no Arwen at all! so the showrunners have to be really careful here). Tar-Miriel orders Halbrand to come to her and he is immediately hailed by the villagers as their "king that was promised" which is completely stupid since it is the first time they have ever seen him and they immediately believe he is their king only on account of his pouch (though if he is Sauron he may really be their king taking into account what happens next).
Arondir gives the packet with what he thinks is the hilt to Theo, and as Theo says he misses the weapon as he experienced real power with it, I though that maybe the irritating kid is Sauron is disguise because why not? There is no logic in the show after all, and Theo definitely has leanings towards darkness.
All this does not matter at all since the loyal Darkfriend, the guy from the tavern, escaped with the real hilt (it was really silly of the whole good guys team not to have checked what the packet really contained, though maybe Arondir could have known something? since it would be equally silly of the elf to give the hilt back to Theo, giving them advice to get rid of it, which Theo obviously would not have followed) and initiated the Mount Doom activation procedure (which seemed a bit silly as they could have only destroyed the dams without using the hilt), which as I read online is somewhat scientically realistic. So I guess all the people in the village are now dead, maybe not Adar since he escaped, which is good because he seems like the only interesting character on the show. I hope the explosion would finally kill Galadriel and after some time in Mandos, she would return as the Galadriel we know.
A great deal happens in the episode and the plot thickens. Also, there is quite a lot about dragons in this one, and we get a close-up view of some of the beasts. There is the dragon training, Daemon and Laena flying on their dragons (apparently they found the oldest dragon Vhagar in Pentos and it bonded with Laena) and at the end, Laena's suicide by her dragon, this was rather tragic as it seemed that she and Daemon were a happy marriage and there was love between them, it is also a pity that she orphaned her children, making her dragon burn her when she couldn't give birth to her baby. It is noteworthy that Daemon, unlike the king, didn't want the maesters perform the Caeserean section on his wife, and after she killed herself, he seemed devastated, so maybe there was a true affection between them. They were both living in Pentos, but Laena didn't want to stay there as guests and encouraged him to return to Westeros.
Alicent and Rhaenyra are now open enemies, with Rhaenyra countering her every statement during the privy council and Alicent forcing Rhaenyra to go to her with her newborn baby just after the labour. Rhaenyra's children look like the captain of the city guard (Ser Criston is now on Alicent's team, probably because she saved him from death penalty after he killed the guy in the last episode? though it is a pity it is not explained how he escaped punishment) and Alicent tries to make the king see the truth about Rhaenyra's children but he supports his daughter and turns a blind eye to it; though the matter gets out of hand when the said city guard guy (apparently the son of the present Hand of the king, it is hard to remember all the personages) attacks Ser Criston, who taunts him about the parentage of Rhaenyra's sons. Here plot gets really thick as the Hand wants to resign but the king does not allow it, though he allows the Hand to escort his son to their castle Harrenhal. Alicent is mad about it. It turns out she dines regularly with Larys (apparently another son of the Hand) and they share juicy gossip and intrigue together. She suggests she would like her father back as the Hand and he hires some criminals sentenced to death, who kill his brother and probably his father as well in the fire of their ancestral seat; even Alicent is a bit shocked by what Larys has done, and it looks like it is dangerous to have him as your enemy, and he turned out much more perilous than he seemed at first.
With her lover gone from King's Landing, Rhaenyra decides to leave with her family for Dragonstone, and she tells her husband to bring his lover as well as they need every sword they can get, so maybe she intends a power grab? I wonder what happens next episode, will the war called Dance of Dragons finally begin? I started the book but I didn't manage to finish it before the show started airing, so I have no idea what is going to happen ;)
The story told in the show abandoned Tolkien's vision of Middle-Earth completely, so now I'm watching it to find out what the showrunners might concoct. It is getting more and more absurd though. I liked some of the visuals, Numenor is beautiful during day and night-time, Lindon also seemed pretty, the ships Numenoreans used are nice but the royal ship from "House of the Dragon" was much more meticulously made than that.
We still don't know who is Sauron since the strange guy Adar didn't actually confess to being Sauron, though there was some confessing made as Theo revealed his secret to Arondir and showed him the mysterious hilt, whereas the elf discovered some ancient sculpture with the sword but he doesn't know anything we haven't already knew, only that the enemy needs it very badly.
The hobbits are back and it seems that Nori and her family and her bestie were abandonded by the rest of the group (nice hobbbit-like solidarity it is, indeed!) and now only the meteor man helps him. They catch up with the group somehow, and when they get attacked by wolves that look more like wargs, he uses his magic and saves them, but later on his hand all turns to ice together with Nori's, who is trying to stop him, so it is not so sure whether he is the good guy. Also, the creepy people from the trailer inspect the site of his landing and sort of worship it, so maybe he is Sauron after all. The hobbit plotline contains a song which is kind of cute but not particularly Middle-Earthish.
Another Sauron candidate, Halbrand, fares rather well since he got the dreamed of job as a smith and makes pretty swords. Apart from that, he is now apparently a member of Tar-Miriels' privy council, which consists also of Pharazon, Galadriel and sometimes Elendil. First he doesn't want to go to war but Galadriel convinces him with some nonsense and there they both are, on a ship sailing towards Middle-Earth, together with Elendil and Isildur who finally gets the place on the ship having saved Kemal's life? The whole Numenor plot is so convoluted and has nothing to do with Tolkien. Someone supports Pharazon and guess who it is? Elendil's OC daughter! She wants to get Kemal to convince Pharazon to stop the war, but Pharazon speaks about conquering new lands in Middle-Earth and subjugating its people, showing his conniving nature for the first time. This is more like the books!Pharazon. Isildur feels left out as all his friends volunteer and take part in military training but he is rejected because apparently he doesn't belong to any guilds. His best friends are in the army now and in a silly scene Galadriel gets to teach the recruits sword-fighting, the winner in the "battle" with her would be promoted to lieutenant and Isildur's bestie Valandil wins. The whole idea of Galadriel teaching the Numenorean recruits sword-fighting is completely stupid, just like the fact that there are apparently young women as well as men among the recruits, it looks so woke.
The elven plotline looks silly as well. The Elves invited Durin jr. to Lindon, but not his lady wife, which seems too uncourteous for the Elves, and at the table they seem to share nasty words with each other, the lack of friendship and trust between the two races is all to clear, whereas in real Middle-Earth Celebrimbor was befriended with the Dwarves. I like Durin but it was terribly jarring with the solemn nature of Middle-Earth when he almost swore during the supper with the Elves, it was so cringy.
I do not like the story Glorfindel tells Elrond to make him break his oath to Durin, according to which mithril is the product of a tree which contained a Silmarill within and without having the opportunity to glance at its light, the Elves would perish. It doesn't fit what we know about the Silmarills (or mithrill) at all. And I was afraid that Elrond would turn out to be spineless after all and break his promise, however all turned out well in the end and he confessed everything to Durin, who promised to help him save the Elves.
Quite a lot happens in the episode, and it is also visually stunning with great attention to detail in both costumes and interiors, I love the royal ships. The Velaryon castle is very impressive, too, and there is a brief cameo of dragons (supposedly Velaryon ones as they come to the wedding feast). I guess a lot is going to happen soon since the king is unwell and it looks like he is seriously ill or even dead at the end of the episode? Alicent gets a lesson from her father about playing the game of thrones and learns that she should have insisted on her son's being declared the heir instead of believing in her former friend's innocence. She also gets more information on Rhaenyra's doings from the lame son of the new Hand, and finally confronts Ser Criston and makes him confess to having slept with Rhaenrya. I thought she would reveal it on the wedding feast or take some revenge but what happened in the end seemed not to have been organised by her.
Rhaenyra and her fiancee seem to have a deal as he is gay and want to keep meeting his lover after the wedding and Rhaenyra wants also to keep Ser Criston as a lover, however he seems not happy to hear about it as he suggests they elope together and get married, though it seems he cares more about having stained his honour by breaking the Kingsguard's vows of chastity than about Rhaenrya herself.
The wedding preparation feast is very intense and suspenseful as the king's speech is interrupted by Alicent's entrance, Daemon also comes even though he was probably not invited and we know he murdered his wife (though I don't know why he hated her so much since she's got character and is quite independent-minded so they should have been a good couple?) and now he demands Runestone as his inheritance from the relatives of his late wife. And then during the dance he openly flirts with Rhaenyra, with the princess suggesting he kidnaps her and they marry. Earlier he also tries to seduce Velaryon's daughter.
I am not sure about the fight at the end of the feast, I though it was some plot concoted by Alicent but it seems that it was Ser Criston who attacked the lover of Rhaenry's Velaryon fiance and apparently beat him to death, I'm not sure why he did this as it was because the said lover confessed his affections for the Velaryon and Ser Criston wanted to protect the princess or on the other hand, he wanted to revenge himself on her after she'd rejected him? Maybe it was on Alicent's instigation as she seems to stop him as he is going to commit suicide. And Rhaenyra is now speedily married off without all these celebrations which were planned for the real wedding since it was only a preparation feast. I am not sure I get all the intricacies of the story since I have not read the book it is based on.
Numenor looks really beautiful and I would really like to explore its palaces and streets, but the story is totally at odds with what is described by Tolkien, and the showrunners do not have any justification for having done this, since the history of Numenor is summarised in detail in the Appendices to LotR they apparently have the rights to. They still avoid explaining what was the reason for the Numenoreans' enmity towards the Elves, namely, jealousy of the immortality possessed by the Elder Children of Illuvatar. Pharazon does some anti-Elvish speech but it looks like the majority of common people are afraid of the Elves stealing their jobs, which seems like a joke, and there is talk about the Elves coming to Numenor, whereas in fact the opposite direction was in the minds of Numenoreans, who wanted to sail to Valinor as they believed they would gain immortality by coming to the deathless lands. Also, it is odd that Tar-Miriel's father is sickly as the Numenoreans did not know sickness, almost like the Elves, only they stayed mortal and the Faithful died of their own will just like Aragorn does in LotR. Tar-Miriel shows Galadriel the palantir while in fact all palantiri were in possession of Elendil's family who took them all to Middle-Earth when they escaped the doom of Numenor. The dream with the great wave Tar-Miriel has looks OK, but I have no idea why they start the show from Numenor's downfall if they plan to have five seasons, they should have started from Elros and slowly built towards Numenor's moral disintegration. I somehow like the OC Earien, she reminds me of Hermione in some sense, maybe because of her ambition and love of learning. In the end, Tar-Miriel decides to set off to Middle-Earth to help Halbrand's people - according to Tolkien, Numenoreans will be victorious and capture Sauron, who would destroy the island realm from within.
Speaking of Sauron, it seems that the orcish leader Adar may be him, since he speaks of his plans of "becoming like a god" and intends to conquer what is to become Mordor. He lets loose Arondir to pass his message, I wonder if Arondir would now become a double agent? It was a bit exciting as Theo was hiding from the orcs after he and his friend went to forage some food from their abandoned village, as an OC it wasn't clear whether he would be killed or not. The old guy from the tavern turns out to be a secret follower of Sauron, though he seems to suggest that Sauron is the meteor man.
Celebrimbor feels that the dwarves are hiding something from the Elves and sends Elrond to sound them out, apparently Durin jr. started working in a new mine, where the dwarves discover mithril. Elrond finds out about the mine only after overhearing Disa and Durin, but in the end his friend lets him into his confidence and shows him the new metal, and Elrond is the one that names it mithril. However, there is an accident and Durin's father orders his son to close the mine. We can also see Disa sing to the stone to release the trapped miners, I hated this in the trailers but here it looks grand. I also liked the scene in which Elrond reminisces about his father Earendel (it is not said he carries a Silmaril, though this word is mentioned in Appendices but maybe not in connection with Earendel) and encourages Durin not to stay estranged from his father on the account of the mine. Durin the king has a lot of trust in his son and believes in his ability as a future ruler, there is also father-son love between them. However, he sends Durin to spy on the Elves in turn as he does not believe in their good intentions. In this way, the mutual distrust of Elves and Dwarves is emphasised, though at this period there was real co-operation between them, so this seems a bit off and more fitting for a later period in Middle-Earth history.
Overall, it is quite far from Tolkien's writings but I am beginning to enjoy it a bit, I am curious about some OCs since we don't know anything about them from Tolkien's novels. There were no hobbits this episode and I didn't particularly miss them.
The episode starts with the reconcilliation between the king and Daemon as well as between Rhaenyra and her former friend Alicent, who seems to support Rhaenyra after all. However, things go to the dogs after Rhaenyra goes to paint the town red with her uncle Daemon, apparently he wanted to show her the poor district and what the common people really think of her? And then I don't know what happened since they ended up in a brothel so I skipped some scenes, and later when Rhaenrya returned to her chambers, she took advantage of Ser Criston but I don't know whether she really slept with Daemon or not as she swore to her former friend Alicent. There is a political scandal about it as the Hand informs the king on Rhaenyra, which has a lot of results, first Viserys expels his brother from King's Landing, than he has a talk with his daughter, and Rhaenyra agrees to marry the Velaryon to fix the political mess, but gives her father the ultimatum to fire Otto Hightower, which he promptly does. I didn't like the episode very much as it concentrated too much on the sexual themes which were often shown in the original Game of thrones and which I really detest, also, there was only one dragon shown in this ep. I liked the story about Aegon the Conqueror's dagger which Viserys tells to Rhaenyra before announcing her whom she is to marry.
Galadriel and Halbrand arrive on Numenor and we get to know Elendil and his family. The island realms of Numenor is impressive and looks really wonderful, Galadriel seems a tad less irritating this episode, but I have no idea why they totally changed the history of Numenor, while they had the rights to the Appendices in LotR, where that history is summarised. Apparently Tar-Miriel is the queen, her father is still alive in some tower, and Pharazon is only her counsellor and not the usurper king (though they can put things right later on by making him usurp the kingship but why complicate matters in the first place when they could have followed the Appendices they had the right to?) I liked the tower of lore with all its scrolls, apparently Galadriel befriended Elendil and he took her there, but the horse-riding scene is really kitschy, Galadriel has a grimace as if she was really straining and not enjoying the ride. She discovers in one of the scrolls that the sign Sauron left was actually the map of Mordor which he plans to establish, how silly of Sauron to lay down his secrets like this. Halbrand fares worse than Galadriel as he antagonises some local smiths and lands in prison, Galadriel finds out that he is some sort of leader of men, though it is not clear whether the good ones or the bad ones. From the interest he showed in the smithy, he could have been Sauron but I guess that the guy Adar the orc worship would turn out to be Sauron in the end (maybe Adar because they don't have the rights to the name Annatar?). Elendil's family is OK, even the invented sister is not so jarring, but here they are sailors and not members of the royal house which is also a huge mistake. The worst part about the Numenor plot is that they never say that the reason why the Men estranged themselves from the Elves was because they were jealous of the Elvish immortality (as it is not said anywhere in the show that the Elves are immortal), so the reason behind the Numenoreans' dislike of the Elves is never explained. This is a huge mistake that would bite the showrunnners back later on.
The hobbits has some sort of celebration before leaving their current camp, and Nori decides to steal a page of Sadoc's book to find out more about the constellations the Stranger has showed her, the sequence about the theft and her friend Poppy covering for her is quite funny. But her dealings with the Stranger are discovered as he puts the stolen pages on fire by accident. She is to be punished and as a result her whole family has to travel at the back of the whole colony, which is especially hard due to her dad's twisted ankle, as the hobbits have to drag their wagons themselves. This seemed a bit un-hobbit like to punish the whole family for what only Nori did. In the end, it looks like the Stranger helps them to push the wagon. I hated the hobbits in the trailers but now I am used to them and they seem the mosst enjoyable part of the show. They are a bit like pixies from myths and legends, deeply rooted in nature, and it is rather sweet, though the last speech of their leader brings back to mind Bilbo's speech in Peter Jackson's films. They also had some commemoration of their dead, lost during the journey, which was quite moving.
Arondir lands in orcish slavery, where other Elves and Men work under the whip of the orcs, which are very sensitive to sunlight and can be seriously burned by it. This may be a callback to Morgoth enslaving Elves in the First Age, as well as Arondir fighting the warg, which may bring to mind Finrod fighting such a creature in defence of Beren when they were captured in Sauron's tower. It is a nice touch to refer to some material they have no rights to, but why on earth they do not use that one they do have access to properly? The show could have been much better if they stayed true to the summary of Numenorian history written in the Appendices. Now as it is, it does not make much sense.
I decided to watch the second episode after all since I've read in some reviews that this one is better than the first, and it is true in some respects. The adventurous hobbit girl is quite likeable and she is a good team with her bestie, and their storyline was nice to watch, at times even a bit funny. She skips her duties to help the mysterious meteor man (who I think may be Gandalf or one of the Istari, but I don't think it is Sauron since in his Annatar guise he was absolutely handsome and seductive and you cannot say this about the Stranger); he is someone who can control the weather so perhaps one of the Maiar would be a good guess. I liked the scene with the fireflies at the end of this plot.
According to some reviews, the Khazad Dum plotline was the most interesting thing in this episode and it turned out to be true, Khazad Dum looks fine, maybe it is not as beautiful as we might have expected it but it is impressive but at the same time retains the characteristic dwarvish feel. The Prince Durin is a likeable character though there was no point in making up some stone-breaking contest as a dwarven tradition as it was not mentioned by Tolkien. Durin's wife Disa is also an enjoyable character, even though she is not in the books, I hated her on the promo images and in the trailers, but I quite liked her in the episode, where she brought some humour and warmth to the conversations. She and Durin look fine as a couple, and I like the idea of singing to the stone as a way to discover its properties, it is the showrunners' invention but somehow feels right in Middle-Earth and is in tune with its being created out of music of the Ainur. As to the conversation of Durin with his father, I guess that the dwarves have found mithril, and what is in the box is perhaps pure mithril, maybe together with the Arkenstone (though this one belonged to the dwarves in the Misty Mountains?)
I cannot stand Celebrimbor since he looks rather old so it is hard to believe he is an elf as the elder children of Illuvatar did not age. I have grown to tolerate Elrond but he is still not good-looking enough to be an elf. I really dislike Galadriel's plotline and I hoped that she would drown in the sea, return to Mandos for her judgement and after some time be re-housed as the Galadriel we know from Tolkien's books but the fool Halbrand had to save her.
I don't really care much about Arondir and Bronwyn's plotline, I am neither very interested in it nor appalled by it. It seems that the orc have dug a tunnel to Bronwyn's house, since her son had found Sauron's old weapon so the big baddie is homing on a location? The orc in Bronwyn's house was really ugly and had a bit occult feel, different from these in Peter Jackson's adaptations, somehow looked more evil than they did.
I found the hobbit lasses quite likeable and the Khazad Dum plotline was rather nice, so there is some tiny improvement in the show, I would have given 5,5 points but it is not possible on this site.
The episode starts slow like the previous ones, and there is a lot of time dedicated to character development and relationships between characters. Rhaenyra is unhappy and rebellious as due to her father's marriage to her once best friend, she feels estranged from her father and does not the support of her friend anymore, who is now the queen and her better in the royal hierarchy, as it is shown in the scene with the court minstrel (Jaskier, what are you doing here?) Really a lot happens in the episode and I may not be able to sum everything up, but the issue of Rhaenyra's marriage come to the fore, which is the source of further conflicts between father and daughter, as Rhaenyra believes that now that her father has a male heir, he would like to replace her in the succession and so wants to "sell her off" in marriage to the highest bidder. She acts impulsively and follows her emotions, which is a bit irresponsible as in her escape from the camp, but at the same time it makes her more human and realistic as a character since she is quite headstrong. In the end, the king has a rather warm-hearted (in Westerosi standards) talk with her and allows her to choose her own husband. Alicent's father tells her to talk the king into making her son the heir to the throne, and it seems she is sort of loyal to her ex-friend as what she talks Viserys into is actually sending help to the Stepstones and not changing the succession. However, earlier Viserys confesses to her his doubts about proclaming Rhaenyra his heir (though he was drunken then so maybe he really does support his daughter? He swears to her that he won't change the succession but in the light of the conversation with Alicent it does not sound genuine and honest). Then there is the metaphor of the hunt, when the king finally kills the hart (though rather unwillingly), whereas Rhaenrya orders the knight to let the white hart go free (though she kills the boar earlier on rather fiercely and violently, however in this case the boar attacked her) - does it portend her father's and hers different attitude to power? The episode continues to be visually pleasing, the sets and costumes look impressive and the plot is quite dense with events. The final battle was impressive but I don't quite get what Daemon was intending to do, were they just following the plot to use someone as a bait to get the Crabfeeder's people from the caves? It is surprising they have succeeded as it was very risky and they were badly outnumbered. Daemon seems to be too proud to accept help from the king as he attacked the messenger quite violently and then undertook the suicidal mission. It looks a bit unrealistic that he isn't killed after being pierced with arrows, but maybe he got a real good armour ;) plot armour ;)
The show does not have much to do with Tolkien and his writings, it is a fanfiction at best and not a very interesting one at that. I found most of the episode boring and for some time I just waited when it is going to end. There were some beautiful landscapes and some pretty scenes, the beginning of the episode with young Galadriel in Aman looked very promising, but soon afterwards the episode started going downwards. I liked the scene with the Two Trees of Valinor and the retrospective of the war with Morgoth, and later on in the ep another scene I quite enjoyed was the elves sailing to Valinor. However, elves themselves are disappointing as they do not look elvish at all, they are supposed to be beautiful and ever-young, but of the elven cast only Galadriel can have some claim to beauty, Elrond is plain whereas Celebrimbor looks quite old (and elves did not grow old so this is in conflict with what Tolkien wrote). The hobbits look and behave like complete idiots, maybe with the exception of the original character Nori, who is quite likable. The humans do not act in a Tolkienian fashion at all, they would have been more at home in one of the bars in "The Witcher". Arondir and his lady love look a bit interesting, and it seems like they are going to do some detective work so this might be fun to watch. However, I am totally not buying this kickass warrior they turned Galadriel into. Her being bent on finding Sauron and avenging her brother does not seem believable in light of what we know about Galadriel. All in all, none of the characters can make me root for them, they are all equally bland and I don't really care for any of them, either Tolkien characters or original ones. The dialogue sounds quite trite, banal and commonplace, and completely lacks the poetic quality present in Tolkien's language. I understand that the show cannot quote Tolkien's words as Peter Jackson did in LotR, since there is no novel based on this period, only some notes in the Appendices the showrunners have the rights to, but they could have at least strove to achieve a similar poetic turn of phrase, and they haven't even attempted it. And last but not least, the show failed to awake any emotions in me, which might be its final nail in the coffin. Since the episodes are quite long, I am wondering whether I would like to spend so much time watching the show, and I am not sure whether I would give the next episode a chance. Emotion-wise, it couldn't have been further away from the moving and poignant Peter Jackson films (which do a great job at depicting the spirit of Tolkien's works if not the letter). The good thing about the episode was lack of nudity and excessive violence, but that and some breath-taking vistas might be not enough to keep me watching it.
The episode starts a bit slow but gradually gains momentum until the confrontation between Rhaenyra and Daemon. The princess is a rather likeable character that you can root for, I hope she would not change into a monster like Dany did in GoT. She thinks a bit out of the box and is not afraid to take dangerous decisions as in choosing to confront Daemon against her father's wishes. The father-daughter relationship between Rhaenyra and her dad king Viserys is very interesting, because even though they seemed to have fallen out after Aemma's death, they have quite a normal and loving relation which is exceptional in Westerosi standards. The king also looks like a more "human" person and not someone bent on plots and intrigues, which perhaps makes others perceive him as weak. It looks like his interest in Rhaenrya's friend Alicent is genuine as he rejects a more advantageous match in favour of her (though it may be said that Velaryon's daughter is too young to bring him heirs anyway so there may be a practical reason behind it as well). Though I supposed he would marry them both as it was Targaryen custom to have more than one wife. This decision does complicate matters as the spurned Velaryon wants to convince Daemon to join his side. As for Daemon, it seems that Rhaenyra is the only one who can reach him and have some sort of influence over him. It looks like she might be a good ruler if she ever gets the throne.
I loved the visuals in this episode, I think the intro was not shown in the first one? but it is really impressive. The interiors of the court are so detailed with all the furniture and even food that they resemble real places and not some stage decorations like in "The Witcher". The costumes are also meticulously made. Dragonstone covered in mist was a feast for the eyes. Though I got the impression that Rhaenyra was risking quite a lot in confronting Daemon as his dragon seemed bigger than her Syrax, or the scene was shot in such a way.
The episode was quite good, the vistas impressive, the city and the palace really look like placed lived in instead of just decorations. I enjoyed the dragons though there were not that many of them. Princess Rhaenyra looked a bit stiff in the trailers, but in the actual episode she turned out to be an interesting and lively character. It looks like the king Viserys had a genuine affection for his wife, which is really rare in the cruel world of Westeros, which makes her death due to the decision he took even more dramatic. He also seems to have a better father and daughter relationship than his Hand, who intends to use his daughter to advance himself. I liked the scene when Viserys explains everything about his vision to his daughter and gives her a mission to undertake as a ruler, a mission which ties up to the previous show.
The season finale was weaker than the earlier episodes concentrating on the Mandalorian, as it was mainly action and battle scenes, with Boba's teams fighting against an overwhelming number of the enemy, in the end they win against impossible odds. The most important things these episodes were that Grogu apparently chose staying with Mando and not continuing his training as a Jedi (as seen from the fact that he is wearing the bescar armour) and coming to visit Mando, unbeknownst to him. Grogu comes at the moment which is not very fortuitous as the battle against the Pykes rages in the city, including two mechanical beasts which have terribly effective magical protective shields, making them almost impossible to take them down. Even though Grogu gave up formal training, his Jedi skills come in handy during the battle and help to save Mando's life. Mando also starts to using the Darksabre more effectively, though he drops it in the battle and it is not shown that he retrieves it, so maybe it would fall into some unsavory hands. Boba's rancor participates in the fight and takes down the battle drones but later gets out of control and it takes Grogu's Jedi skills to pacify it. In the meantime, Fennec takes down the Pykes main command, with the traitorous mayor and treasonous leaders of the city. Boba kills the Pyke emissary, having learnt that it was the Pykes who murdered his Tusken family. Everything ends happily, with all main characters alive and Mando travelling happily with Grogu on his new racing spaceship (though the previous one was much more spacious). Overall, it was fine but inferior in comparison to "The Mandalorian" season finales.
