Whoops. Seems I made a mistake in my post about episode 5. Celebrimbor is not going away after all. I got that all wrong. Apparently, he is making the 9 rings himself to somehow compensate for the 7 corrupted rings. Oh well. It seems making those 9 rings is a pain in the butt though, since every attempt has failed so far, even managing to run out of mithril. Celebrimbor is showing some reluctance to the whole thing still, and is slowly going a bit nuts in the process. The manipulation by Sauron continues unabated, and he even succeeds in getting more mithril somehow, despite being denied for more material by the dwarven king.

Wow, an actual semi-competent episode with some tension and interesting plot development. Color me surprised! Well, I shouldn’t praise it too much, since I find the Númenor plot line boring, and above all, strange. Now, the coup for leadership is completed for Númenor, but I really don’t see how the failure (was it even a failure?) of the little war in the south would turn the whole country against the queen. Sure, losing a battle is never good for morale, yet, it wasn’t that bad. And when they set out to slay orcs, the spirits of the population were high. They do realize that war comes with risk, and that some of the soldiers will surely die, right? Also, it was only one freaking battle! Talk about finicky citizens that supposedly have war in their veins.

Out of a morbid curiosity, I just had to watch the initial episodes of Rings of Power season 2. And it sure is a morbid experience, morbidly dull. The main problem, beyond the apparent forced diversity, is the pacing. Almost every single scene consists of two people talking in a very static environment. It’s hilariously boring because the dialogue spoken is incredibly poor, and rarely moves the plot forward. It desperately tries to sound profound and “ye old English” for authenticity, but just comes off as inept. It’s a repeat of the first season, yet, somehow, even worse now, as it seems the little passion they had for the project has evaporated fully.