The Rings of Power Season 1 Ep 5 is the fifth instalment of the first season of a fantasy TV series streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Loosely based on the appendices author JRR Tolkien included in his Lord of the Rings trilogy, canonically, this series is set in the Second Age of Middle Earth, whereas the Lord of the Rings was set in the Third Age. Much has been made about this series being unfaithful to Tolkien’s works and thus, we have decided to analyse the story of The Rings of Power on its own merits, while ignoring the accusations of virtue signalling race and gender swapping.
S P O I L E R S
Plot
Entitled “Partings”, The Rings of Power Season 1 Ep 5 might well be the best episode so far BUT that is a low bar to clear, considering how poor the series has been so far. As always, there are a couple of sub-plots to cover but mostly nothing of serious consequence actually occurs and as usual, sadly, there are loads of writing flaws running throughout the episode.
READ OUR ANALYSES OF THE RINGS OF POWER.
The Harfoots – thankfully absent from the last episode – return as Nori, family and friends come unstuck against dangerous wolves in the journey. Gandalf (?) saves them all with a show of strength (and gains acceptance – which was probably the only point of this sequence) – before Gandalf (?) almost freezes Nori’s arm off in an explicable scene. Mystery WTF! Speaking of mysteries, a group of strangely garbed individuals find the meteor crash site and all make funny faces especially the one that looks like Eminem (!) – again who knows what the fuck is going on.
In the Southlands, half of villagers heed Adar’s offer to defect and we discover that he isn’t Adar at all! Who then? Back at the tower, Bronwyn is still leading the villagers – why would they listen to her, she’s nobody – maybe cuz she shouts a lot???? The only significant plot advancement is that Theo reveals the dark blade hilt to Arondir and they conveniently find it carved into the wall of the tower. It’s a key but to who knows what, apparently. Yay, another mystery.
The rest of the action takes place in Númenor – this gets very confusing as we have been shown that folks are against the Elves but for war led by Galadriel? And in this episode, it once again moves from folks being against and for this Galadriel-led war effort at the same time. We presume that this is an allegory of modern America where the country is divided by wedge issues. Ho hum. Then there is the strange case of the two sons viz. Kemen (Pharazon’s son) and Isildur (Elendil’s son) – the former is dead set against the war effort and sets a ship on fire without consequence and the latter wants to be in on the war effort but is denied.
There is also a sequence between Elrond and Durin concerning mitril that is silly, suggesting that the ore will save the fortunes of the Elves – huh? How does that even work? Utterly ridiculous!
Characters
The Rings of Power Season 1 Ep 5 is notable for it finally gives us a Galadriel moment that actually makes her character slightly more engaging. This happens when she opens up to Halbrand and presumably because of this vulnerable moment, Halbrand convinces the Queen Regent to go ahead with the war effort. Nothing much else in terms of character development though Pharazon is revealed to have devious reason to aid Galadriel in the war effort i.e. to get Elves to serve Númenor – how does that even work? No explanation given!
The Final Analysis
The Rings of Power Season 1 Ep 5 might be the best episode of this poor series so far but it is still riddled with writing flaws. The main one as usual being that nothing much really happens and it’s still incredibly boring. Avoid and spend your time watching House of the Dragon instead.
Now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
… still there’s more…