Wow, I was joking...That would have been awful. I'm glad they've kept it PG-13.

On another note, I didn't know any of the actors prior to seeing it. But, I'm not someone who watches a lot of movies or tv series these days.

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"I give you my word as a Biden"

intimacy coaches are a real thing, too. frank langella was just fired from a netflix project because he "failed to follow the instructions of an intimacy coordinator", because he touched his co-star's hand as an improvisation.

He wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes on this set. You've got to get caught up on this. You're going to want to stop when you see what mithril is but you have to power thru.

I'm thankful for this show because it gives me something to watch during cardio on Fridays but damn is it poorly done. So this episode was the Rohan episode from Two Towers and it looked like the big charge was the same horse model copied a hundred times. I'm wondering if they already blew thru the budget because the CGI is just getting worse and worse. They should also hire a fight choreographer or two and directors who know how to do fight scenes.

When the showrunners with no experience got gig they actually had good idea and tried to bring Peter Jackson in as executive producer to oversee everything. The Amazon lawyers killed that because the show has to be distinct from trilogy for legal reasons so thought they may be sued. Then they made big mistake and brought in Lindsey Weber instead who was JJ Abrams underling. The ending of this episode looked like some JJ Abrams bullshit too. Its amazing how they can't seem to ever find ways that make sense to get where the plot needs to go. The whole episode was pretty much nonsensical but the last 15 minutes were next level.

Also the Irish are upset because the "noble" elves have an English accent while the "grubby simpleton" hobbits have an Irish accent. Nobody wants to be associated with those psychopaths.

Next level meaning good? Saw a new trailer and things look pretty cool but I’m grasping for anything at this point.

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I thought the ending was really bad...one of the more stupid things I've ever seen. I was shocked as it was unfolding...actually I laughed then I was shocked. I'm sure they were giving high fives when they came up with it too...

I'm not sure where they go from the ending. I guess that's one way to keep people watching.

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"I give you my word as a Biden"

***SPOILER***






Why couldn't the orcs just blow up the dam? The sword was just a key to unlock the dam for the waters to rush through the tunnels to spark the volcano?

The elf warrior says he is going to hide the sword thingy in a secret place no one knows about and he ends up hiding it under the dinner table? WTF

Its a billion dollar show and they can't even get basic continuity right. Single mom gets hit twice and they only remove one arrow. They show the peasants spending the day building fortifications then they do an overhead shot of town at dusk and all the fortifications are missing. When the orcs are getting ready to storm the tavern its pitch black out but they cut to a shot of the cavalry coming and its broad daylight. It looked like they had unloaded the horses then someone yelled charge while they were still 150 miles away. I don't know why they showed the cavalry because when they really showed up it ruined the surprise not that anyone would have been surprised anyway. When Galadriel and Aragorn-lite chase evil elf somehow Aragorn-lite ends up in front of them even though Galadriel is doing some kind of elven spell to make her horse go faster and Aragorn got a late start.

The package at end was amazing as Galadriel and Aragorn-lite apparently had no interest in getting a look at the top secret #1 most powerful evil artifact there is. Then elf dad ends up with it and gives it to his kid even after his kid said the sword has some kind of hold over him. Don't worry about it...just throw it in the ocean or something. At first when he opened it and it was an axe I thought his dad was teaching him some kind of lesson...my brain just can't keep up with their incompetence.

Yeah I remember one scene looking cool and the other pretty lame...

Whoever is the stunt person for her is terrific.

_________________
An Ode to the Texas man who shot an Antifa terrorist:

Oh, he might have went on livin'
But he made one fatal slip
When he tried to match the Ranger
With the big iron on his hip

That's an interesting take. When slowed down they are hanging from a rope and can't even swing the sword they just sort of point it up then they add a CGI explosion of guts when they go by. Its so empowering they do it again later. I guess scenes like this happen when they bring in the director of Madam Secretary instead of someone experienced in shooting large battle scenes.

I did a real LOL when Galadrial asks what happened to that dude's wife and he talks about the sea and the sun and then just goes "She drowned" and walked away. I'm sure I missed something as I don't know much about any of this stuff outside of watching the other movies but it just seemed like he was on his way to a nice long story about love and loss and then got bored after a few sentences and just went with the quickest explanation he could have lead with.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

They're always doing stuff like that. People will be talking then one of them will say something that has nothing to do with what they're talking about. This is probably the worst written show I've ever seen but I'm sure they think they're killing it. That's why its so hilarious.

The dark elf was about as disappointing as the crab man. Why can't these shows find a mini-boss than can fight?

i'm finally caught up--i think the show has definitely picked up greatly between episodes 5 and 6. but that's also what is frustrating about it. this show is called "the rings of power" and so far, through over 6 hours of content, the only thing that comes close to what brings us to the importance of that macguffin is a broken sword that becomes a "key".

if this show doesn't have "lord of the rings" stamped on it, no one is watching this past the first 20 minutes of the first episode. it's already been approved for a second season, because it couldn't fail any harder and still have the bezos $ to back it up. because it does, we might get 8 seasons out of this.

there have been some decent character development, with elrond and durin; arondir, halbrand, brownyn, and theo are all pretty much likable.

i think there are just 2 episodes left for the season? even if there are 4 for an even 10, the story is at least getting a lot more interesting.

I think the next thing to look for will be upcoming Nielsen ratings to see how much viewership dropped after 1st 2 episodes. They did a big number as expected for episode 1 and 2 but the real test will be how many stuck with it. There are some 3rd party services that are saying it was a big drop so it could force Amazon to actually address the quality of their show.

There's just something off about this show. Things that shouldn't make it to the screen do somehow despite the 3 showrunners, 20 producers, and various writers and directors. The whole sequence with the sword key and the axe being passed around...nobody said hey wait this is really stupid? It seems like the general outline of show is pretty decent they just don't know how to get to where plot needs them to without everything going haywire. The dialogue is brutal.

The women empowerment is constant and annoying. Its not enough to make the women heroic or capable they also have to make the men inept. Elindil is supposed to be the greatest warrior from what I understand and is Aragorn's ancestor and he needs saving from orcs that peasants with sticks didn't have much trouble with. The elf needs saved by single mom when he was wrestling with the orc.

This show is such a mess...during the battle they kept showing that old man like we were supposed to know who he was. Then in tavern after single mom gets shot she says no help Bob (or whatever) first then camera pans over and he's got the mouth open with tongue out face to show he's dead. They held it for awhile as if it was meaningful and we were supposed to feel sad. Later when volcano was going off I realized that was the dude with the cow from way back in episode 1.

Do you have a theory about Sauron? I thought he was 12 feet tall and had black spiked armor so I thought he'd be easy to spot but I guess in this show he can turn into different people or something. Everyone seems to think its Halbrand. I think its single mom. That would be the ultimate empowerment move.

Did you win your Lord of the Rings tournament?

oh yeah, we did win--no thanks to me. we got duped initially. the website for the trivia at the brewery said it was going to deal mostly with the films. when the trivia started, the host said it would mostly deal with the books. but luckily, we didn't get hoodwinked. at least half of our group were LOTR book scholars pretty much. we won by only a point but it was a really solid tournament. every table looked like a D&D campaign could break out at any moment.

there are a lot of ridiculous moments that keep me from really letting go and loving the show, and it's almost entirely bereft of good storytelling. the dialog is comic book level, and as i said before, character development is *just starting* to get better.

and i guess there are only 2 episodes left.

from the start my theory was that Meteor Man is Gandalf. mostly it seems to be between him, sauron, or another wizard. it better be someone significant because they are majorly dragging the mystery out.

Who Ya Crappin'?

Yeah it has to be Gandalf. Amazon isn't spending 250 million on the rights if they can't have Gandalf. Its strange how they're handling him though nobody knows what that is all about. It seems Sauron is a regular cast member in disguise. I don't know how this is possible as I don't know the lore. I think they revealed it in the marketing for show that is how people know. I'm guessing its single mom for the empowerment angle but most people say its Halbrand because Galadriel is falling in love with him even though she has a husband and kids from what I'm told.

Yeah there are 2 episodes left so I guess we will get a Sauron reveal and the sword kid will reveal he's an elf.

I don't have too much to say about this episode. The only funny part was when hobbits got their RV's burned to ground. Finally some justice for these bastards who wanted to steal the main hobbit families wheels and leave them to the wolves. Gandalf would have been there to help them but they ran him off because they're so stupid.

Unfortunately some hobbits left to search for Gandalf so more screen time. They couldn't just have the 2 kids leave in middle of night they have 2 adults go with them so their scenes will be even more annoying. Why is the leader going with them? He needs to stay and help the main group since all their stuff is gone.

The writing is the worst. Everything is on fire and Galadriel doesn't stay to help she takes off with sword kid so she can do exposition the whole episode. The queen was helping everyone then became blind somehow. You knew the one guy was going to get it when he said he wanted to retire and stay and help rebuild. It was supposed to be emotional but he had 4 lines at most so nobody cares morons. Nobody cared about the cow man either. They try to pay things off that aren't earned. Why does Isuldur and this horse have a relationship? They were together for 2 minutes at most on screen. Now the horse is going to go dig him out of a collapsed shack?

I was entertained by the incompetence but I think the messaging is starting to wear me down. Thankfully just one to go.

Yeah, another garbage episode. I thought mithril was just a metal that made great armor due to its lightness and strength. Now it can bring dead things back to life?

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The whole mithril thing is garbage. I don't get it at all.

Exactly. To use a Hitchcock term, Mithril likely turns out to be a Macguffin. But, it's distracting and not faithful to the Tolkien canon.

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"I give you my word as a Biden"

Mystery Boxes and Macguffins are all their writers are capable of. JJ Abrams company has hit hard times since Star Wars disaster so a lot of his people left and ended up on Rings of Power. They needed to find something for elves and dwarves to do while Galadriel was on her adventure and that's what a billion dollars came up with.

That ending was something else...I've never seen a character ask another character a question then the answer appears in corner of the screen. I don't even know what they were attempting to do there...maybe they think their audience are morons. "Southlands" appears then changes to "Mordor" in case the desolation and volcano didn't give it away. The Southlands just changed to Mordor everyone...its evil now.

It looks like Amazon spent 250 million and didn't even get the rights to Gandalf so nice job by their negotiators. I have no idea who this guy is...he's wearing a bath robe so maybe when they couldn't get the rights to Gandalf they got the rights to The Dude instead. We've seen his magic powers scare wolves and bring trees back to life, in next episode they'll show his magical ability to abide.

I'm not sure if the writer of this episode watched the previous ones...the dwarf wife is evil now? Its hilarious how they're trying to make the dwarf king look like bad guy when everyone knows he's right because we watched the trilogy.

The writers must think the audience are idiots. All of a sudden Durin is claiming Elrond is a brother who is drowning and they must save them. (From what? Only living 1,000 years instead of being immortal?) Elrond betrayed their friendship by telling others of the mithril after promising not to.

And why doesn't the King explain why they shouldn't be digging for mithril? (Not for the Elves but for themselves.) Either he knows there is a balrog down there, in which case he should simply say that, or he doesn't know and would have no reason not to dig. That's what dwarves do, right?

Amazing we have one episode to go in "Lord of the RINGS: The RINGS of power" and we haven't seen any rings yet.

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Like you said mithril is just a rare metal that is useful for armor. The subplot about elves will die without it is something they made up because they suck at writing. This is the kind of thing critics should be asking them about or talking about in their reviews. They should know this makes no sense but somehow it finds its way on screen like every other stupid idea they come up with. How do elves even absorb mithril? Do they have to carry a piece in their pocket? Is it like a salt lick? They probably lost all the Tolkien people with that one...they knew all hope was lost. They needed to come up with some kind of conflict between dwarves and elves to kill time. Just make up some artifact the dwarves have that the elves want or something. Its not hard.

This show is so poorly written who knows what is going on with king. It would make sense the king knows its down there by way he's acting but then he just throws the leaf down there. Granted the idea of a leaf waking up a balrog is ridiculous but that might be what just happened...

One thing that annoys me is the notion the elf let the dwarf win in the rock breaking contest. What is the point of dwarves then if they can't break rocks better than an elf? Breaking rocks is what they do. These writers didn't do any research before they started writing this shit. I think these morons think elves are like superheroes. Did you see them carrying that table? They think they have super strength. Elves are light and very agile they don't have super strength. Dwarves are stronger than elves and these idiots don't even know that. I've never seen anything like this show. Its a disaster. A billion dollars pissed away.

I think Handril is in Aragorn's blood line as the King of Middle earth. We also saw Gondorf's monster in that scene where the leaf floats down to the bottom of the Dwarf cave, right.?

The three bitches who burnt the big footed hobbit characters have to be bad elf mystics right? Methinks that Gondorf has some history with those three ugly elves?

_________________
An Ode to the Texas man who shot an Antifa terrorist:

Oh, he might have went on livin'
But he made one fatal slip
When he tried to match the Ranger
With the big iron on his hip

For those of us who didn't read the Tolkien books, did he say that dwarves are stronger than elves? That certainly didn't happen in the Trilogy or the other movies. In the Trilogy it sure looked to me that the elves as warriors were certainly more athletic than the dwarves.

_________________
An Ode to the Texas man who shot an Antifa terrorist:

Oh, he might have went on livin'
But he made one fatal slip
When he tried to match the Ranger
With the big iron on his hip

Aragorn's grandfather way down the line is the captain guy who is supposed to be the greatest warrior in the story. Unfortunately he's in this show and is a man so he needed to be knocked down a few pegs so he's basically useless. He couldn't even handle a few orcs in last episode and this episode they have him crying like a baby while the the 3 women faction leaders are looking at him like "jeez...what a baby".

Yeah that was the balrog. Did the leaf wake him up or was he already awake? Who knows.

We don't know if the 3 weirdos are good or evil. Burning up the hobbits RV's can be viewed as both a good or evil act I suppose. I would argue its a good act because the hobbits are the most evil creatures in the show.


I didn't read books but I think its a known thing that dwarves are physically stronger than elves. The elves have agility and are light and use bows. The dwarves are like walking tanks with heavy armor and use axes and hammers.

So i have a few issues but nothing that is turning me off to a point where i'm done watching.

- this mystery guy is just annoying. just tell us who it is already. it being gandalf will make me consider not watching any longer.
- this awakened balrog. again this is a 3rd age thing. why are you doing this now. and lots of mithril is mined before its awakened in the books.
- i don't mind the 3 mystics or whatever. but comeon lets get on with it.
- the whole mithril origin is just not something i'm a fan of. but i'm also not like "I HATE IT". just adds to much power to something that isn't used much outside of its protective properties in the future.


I will say that I enjoyed how they turned the southlands into mordor. i thought the whole thing was done well.