Recapping The Rings of Power is PAINFUL | Season 1 Recap Review

We rewatched all of season one of the rings of power so that you didn't have to. Now this was hard enough the first time for me, but how was it the second time around for you? The show is so slow. I feel really bad for the people who imagine waiting a week for that. This show makes house of the dragon feel action packed, which is kind of crazy. And people started hating that. People got very angry at house of the dragon. Disclaimer. We like the Lord of the Rings movies a lot, but we are not big into the law. And to be honest, the law scares me and is very confusing. Correct. Mention a simirillian in my presence and my who hard drives up. All I know about this show is it's kind of cobbled together a bunch of different bits of the law because they didn't have the rights to all the bits. Yes. So they've kind of just like done what they can, which seems an insane thing to do for a show. Like they've decided that they want to make a Lord of the Rings show and then they've kind of just bought whatever they could. I feel like I'm not going to talk about it much as being like, this is a law accurate. Like, you know, that's someone else's job to do. Yeah. We're just going to talk about, is it a good show? Yes. And the answer in short is no. Correct. But let's make, let's make that long. So the story basically follows four main storylines. You've got your main girl Galadriel. You've got the hobbits or the half-foots. You've got Elrond Hubbard. You've got Elrond who's doing some dwarf stuff. And then you've got Arandir who is the. They end his story very quickly. You get to like episode five and you never see him again. Yeah, he's in six, but Galadriel rocks up by then. Let's start with Galadriel cause she's the main gal. Galadriel. Oh, my girl Galadriel. Play the clip. My girl Galadriel. Her whole thing is that she has no emotions and she's hunting down Sauron who she believes is still alive. And she only speaks in poems. Everyone in the show does. But she does it the worst. I mean, the elves in general, I think, do it the worst. Because they're meant to be thousands of years old and they're just very boring. That's the thing. It's like, I think they're trying to show this like higher cast of being where it's like, we've lived for thousands of years. We've experienced it all. And we know we have all this beautiful like art and the worst way of life. That's like way better than everyone. And we have this heaven that we can go to whenever we want, kind of, if you're worthy. Which is weird. So it's like, they have to speak in this nimbly-fimbly kind of way. But then when you watch like Lord of the Rings, like the OGs, Olyrond wasn't talking like this in the future. Galadriel in the movies talks quite flowery, but she's not the main character. So you only hear her talk for a little bit. Yeah. Whereas most of the time it's people talking normally. So it's kind of strange that there's so much of it and everyone talks in like similarly rhyme poetry. It just sounds like bad poetry. Yeah. Like it's like eighth grade poetry. It's, it's. The worst one is in Galadriel's first scene when she's a child, which is where we meet her. And her brother says, "Why does the stone sink, but the ship sail?" The stone sinks because it looks down, whereas the ship looks up. And it's like, "What?" And then she's like, "But the sun reflects in the water, so the sun is the same in the water, so you don't know which way up is." And it's like, "That's not..." Disgusting. The show makes me feel dumb because I feel like I don't understand what anyone is even doing in the show because- Motives clear and how brand is the worst of it was like their way of communicating their emotions isn't good. Well, that's because glad your face can't change. Did I have I must have had earphones in the whole time because I feel like the music never gave me an emotion like Lord of the Rings did, you know, like Lord of the Rings like it gives you emotion through that music. You're like, whoa, it feels so good. And like this one, I didn't feel a connection to any of the music at all. Yeah, it's there, but I just don't care about it most of the time. Yes, gladrails quest so gladrail quested for a thousand years to try and find a trace of Sauron, which is already a boring place to start because she's been looking for this for a thousand years. She hasn't found anything. It seems like we only meet her when she finds something a thousand years in, but the whole time she's been like steadfast and believing that Sauron is still alive. She doesn't really have a reason to apart from there was a tempest in her. There's a tempest in me. Yes. And she feels it in her in her waters. I think she needs to. She needs revenge or she needs closure for her brother's death. But she has nowhere to put that anger, which is interesting from like a character point of view of like, oh, she can never satisfy her grudge against Sauron cause she'll never meet him. But then us watching that is her just being an angry, petulant child. And she's like 3000 years old and taking it out on everybody who puts their faith in her, like all her men mutiny against her because the king hates her. But she's also perfect the whole time. Like she dispatches a snow troll in the first five minutes of the show. everyone else in her party can't do it, and she does herself. So she's perfect in every way, and she's always correct. Like Sauron is still real. We find out in the finale that Sauron is still around, and it kind of kills the mystery of when she meets Halbrand, which she does so in the second episode after all the men say, "Hey, Sauron's dead. You can go to heaven now." Law is so confusing every time I like. It's the Undying Lands. I don't know if that's in the books or that's a show thing that they can just go to heaven. You can only go there if the elves say you can. Why are they not in heaven? They all kind of go. Yeah, I don't know why they came back to like the main overarching plot for the elves is the fact that the tree is dying. So they're probably going to die apparently. then i leave go back to the owner go to heaven that sounds Don't yell at us. Please feel free to correct us in the comments. But also the show doesn't explain it to you. Yes. Well, the show doesn't explain itself, but it tries to. Cause the Lord of the Rings movies seem to do it very interestingly where they barely touch the law, but you just kind of understand what you need to. the dwarves are talking to each other. You know us dwarves have a second name that only some dwarves know to us. Yeah, just in the middle of conversation. I see you know stone tongue. They just law dump on you, but without explaining the law. But not in an interesting way as well. And so, yeah, it doesn't make sense in the context. My favorite shipping of Elrond and Durin, that could have been so good the whole like, this is my second name, we only tell important people, but it's like brushed over so quickly because Elrond's like a man on a mission. When Durin decides that to tell him the big law dump how he's like, oh, I have a second name, and we find out that his second name is just subscribe. That's not emotional. That's below. This show does the same thing that House of the Dragon does where it jumps around a review. Yeah. But that means you get 15 minutes with each storyline, which isn't enough to even get introduced to them. And then the second episode, you also get another 15 minutes. So it's kind of like they're trying to cram in too much. But when you look at the story as a whole, nothing happens in eight episodes. Yeah. The Elven King in Middle Earth says, "Hey, look, we're done looking for him. I decree him dead forever. You're all going to Velenor. You have a piece of real estate. See ya." And then she's like, "Okay, cool." She's on the boat, but then something inside her says, "I'm not done here yet." And then she jumps from the boat in the middle of the ocean. She doesn't really explain what that was. Like she gets a... Yeah. Final episode. What did she say? She says something was tying me here or. When she jumps in the middle of the ocean and swims, however long she bumps into one, like a random group of people with like one very obviously standout guy. And he's like, do you only. But it kind of kills all the mystery because Galadriel as a character Mm-hmm. Who is how Brandon till the finale his storyline is insane because it seems like he just wanted to relax you want to like retire from evil yeah which again is kind of interesting. He would take on the mortal form to live as mortals do or whatever why did he allow himself to be stranded in the middle of the ocean that doesn't seem like a good place to be yeah like I'm gonna say he did on purpose to find glad real obviously. Yeah, because it seems like he wants to repent for his evil deeds so it seems like he becomes a mortal or like as much of a mortal as they can become and then he gets kicked out of his homeland by orcs. And then glad you'll find him sees he has the crest of the king of the Southlands and she's just immediately like all this guy's the king he puts that on him. Yes completely he doesn't. and she-- And she's like, "You're going to be the king." And he's like, "I don't want to be the king." And she's like, "Mm, we'll see." Sounds like something a king would say. How noble of you, king. Heavy wears the head, my guy. Um, and then they get found. They get found by Asildur's dad. And Asildur is in this show, even though he's also in the movies, which I think is in three or 4,000 years, it's a while away. So they get found by the Numenoreans, who is another lore dump of a bunch of people that live on an island. Yeah. They were the good humans that helped the elves at some point. And everyone hates the elves now. That's a whole like, "Oh, they're different from me. I hate them." Once they're in Numenor, her storyline turns into getting the queen to give her an army so that she can go save them. until the others. Mm-hmm and Ork seemed to be everywhere in the Southlands But Galadriel's been looking for Orks for a thousand years and hasn't found anything and or killed them all like Another well that she says like something like we haven't seen an Ork for Like her men have given up on her because it's been They haven't even heard whispers. Then people will run out of the Southlands. They're very bad at their jobs. They even have a watchtower in the Southlands with like a burning village that happened in the other storyline. But that watchtower didn't see the burning village. Correct. So it's just like no one's paying attention to these orcs. Even though they have alphires that can see for very long. And he says it's only a day's walk. Yeah, they get there really quick in the thing. You can never tell how many days it's been. Has it been weeks? No one's haircut changes. Everyone's always perfect. I could see this whole show happening in like a span of like three days. This show should have been a movie if that. Galandriel finally convinces the Queen to give her an army basically. A bunch of shenanigans ensue, like we meet Yseldor, we meet his mummy milker sister, we meet Hot Dad, like, that's right. I sexually objectify everyone. We see the Palantir that's maybe it's Saruman's Palantir, who knows. That's the orb, the ponders, they ponder the orb. There's lots of orb pondering. She goes to the Southlands, which meets up with the second storyline, which is Arandir, who is an elf that's in love with a human. Correct. This show does a lot of things that the movies do, like Elf in Love with Human and then Hobbit and Gandalf. Mysterious stranger who's tall and can cast magic and wears a grey robe. So Arandir's storyline is we're introduced to him in the Southlands. He goes into a tavern and everyone hates the elves in the tavern. So he's with the other subsect of humans who helped Morgoth in the war. It's also it's kind of already cliche of like, oh, I hate you because I'm a racist. Hey, knife ears. Using words like that, it's like we need our racial divide in here. And they also make him a black elf. Like he is the first black elf in history. I'm more annoyed that he has short hair. I thought the whole thing about it. Yeah, they gave him like a way they gave him waves. I don't even like Elrond's hair because I mean, it looks it's perfectly cool. It's impeccable. Literally every elf we see in every other. [BLANK_AUDIO] Yeah, do you have eggs? Do you have eggs? So, Arandia has to say goodbye to his beautiful human wife because, hey, we finally got orders. No more evil in the Southlands. It's time to go home. Just when he's out, Sauron brings him right back in and he goes on one more quest to discover why this cow is leaking black milk. The cow has been feasting in the Eastlands or something. him and his girlfriend just We should investigate this. I'm going in that hole. She goes, but you don't know where it goes. And he goes, that's why I must go. Like that's why I must investigate. So then he goes into a hole and then he hears a noise behind him and he gets like scared basically, despite being 150 year old elf warrior. Well, he fights above the ground, up below the ground. He doesn't fight the thing. He runs away, backs himself up against a shrub and gets dragged away and imprisoned. Because the orcs are digging tunnels, it turns out. What did you think about that powerful scene where he has to cut down the tree? Not the tree that is the tree that's been there longer than them. He says, "Ushkera kara boror, kara bosh kara soraarou." And then he goes... Yeah. Okay, yeah, thank God. We're in agreement. That is the weirdest, like, what is him becoming a slave really accomplish apart from- Because he's black. Which, for fuck sake. No, because cultures in, in, in my Lord of the Rings. It just feels like they wanted to like fill up a bunch of time. Now orcs who are super strong and powerful as well, they're throwing people through doors and windows and stuff. Now they're enslaving weaker races. But orcs aren't allowed in the sun. So they're having the elves and the people do the digging for them, but they've only got like five or 10 of them. It's like, it would have been quicker if they like put up some cover. We know they can make cover and they can like- So there's no real reason for that whole episode to happen apart from like he meets a da who really doesn't matter at all. He's a compromised elf. He's an evil elf, I guess. And then they just set Arandir free and then he runs back to the village. The village that Galadriel is coming to protect. Yes. And that finally comes to a head in episode six. So you've waited five and a half hours to get to this point. Yeah, which is a small battle in a small village over so quick. When all the battling's done, the episode is still only like it has half the episode to go. Yeah. It's insane that you're waiting that long for that. The second half is kind of like the aftermath because turns out they failed at protecting the town because the whole Southlands gets blown up because of the side story during Arandir's. A little Kiwi boy finds a death sword that when fed blood grows into a bigger sword, that's actually a key to a waterfall that goes into a volcano that explodes. And the waterfall can only get to the volcano because that's what all the tunnels they were digging was for. I thought it was so that they could travel without the sun getting hit. they were making a path for the water. But then my brain thinks if this was a big mechanical setup of unlocking this water so that it could get to the mountain, why wasn't there already a path dug? Like if you build a giant key that breaks the dam to blow up a mountain, why did you not already have tunnels in place? Why did someone else come? I think it's sad. No, we must have been paying attention. I just don't think the dam was originally meant for that. That's what I mean by this show makes me feel stupid. Because I don't think they're explaining things and things are just happening. And I'm like, wait, what? How's the, why? Like motives are unclear. Everything is just strange. But that's pretty much the end of his story. Arandia vanishes. Yeah. Like they, you see him one more time at the end of that episode in like a, a tent cause his girlfriend tries to heal Halbran a little bit and his weird stepson hugs him and he's like, ah, wholesome family moment. Halbran goes with them to the Southlands. He wants to just be on holidays in Numenor. But then someone just goes, "The king that was promised!" And everyone's like, "Hey, the king!" And he's like, "Once he's in the Southlands, they just accept it immediately." And again, he never- He has that pouch he does! Him being the king of the Southlands doesn't make sense, because Gladriel finds his lineage. Mm-hmm. Well, wouldn't ever- Well didn't all his sons die a thousand years back? She puts all of that on him to become king and he just wants to go on holidays. And then at the very end he says power over flesh. And she's suddenly so suspicious of how Brandon that she finally- If she never asked him to stop blacksmithing, he would blacksmith to the end of his days. If she didn't jump off the boat, Halbran never would have found her. If she didn't decide he was the king, Halbran never would have become Sauron. All the evils of Middle-earth are because she's selfish. Because she has decided she's right. Because she thinks Sauron exists and then suddenly decides this man is the king of the Southlands. I don't know why the Southlands needs a king as far as I- Yeah. Just before Hal Brans story finishes, they go into like a weird vision portal where he's like, "I will make you my queen." And she says, Well, he gets stabbed at the battle in the Southlands. Yes. She makes the decision that only elves can heal this just a stab wound. Yeah. It's just a regular lands. Pretty brutal. Like that sucks, my guy. But like you need to travel six days on a horse to get him to Linden. Yeah. So that he can get healed. And all the while, by the way, Linden is building a giant forge to smelt stuff because in episode one, a guy decided he needed it. Yes. I need a big forge by the end of spring, which is convenient because turns out they need that to turn the mithril into the rings of power. Cullen Brimboard, the great, Elvin Smith. He spends all this time trying to, to form it into this powerful object. And it, and it turns out he just makes three subscribe buttons. He makes the like button, the subscribe button and the notification bell. So all the while this is happening. He's like a little bit- He gets mithril, but his actual like- In Galadriel's story. Goings about, yeah. He like talks to her in episode one. And then he talks to her at the very end when he's like mithril and they're like, ah, rings of power. But he has possibly the best story. Definitely the best story. Who has a better story than Elrond the Broken? On me. Fake Gimli. Basically someone said, what if Legolas and Gimli were just friends the whole time. But again, like, but one more time. And there's a lot of interesting things they do in that story. Like the fact that Elrond's a thousand years old, whereas at Warf will die pretty young and they don't see each other for 20 years and the dwarf is like, dude, that's ages. But then they have a little heart to heart. And I think it's mainly just that charming as people. It's just like, they have like just some good banter. Yeah. And like they, they show actual emotion. Whereas like everyone's like communication in this story has. It's monologue. It's weird. Like it's monologue. It's like, it feels very forced. You're just like, shut up. Like that doesn't sound, that doesn't feel like believable conversation. Galadriel talking to anybody, the queen and like a sealed door talking to anybody. And like, I could go on every single character in this, but they just feel genuine for some reason. And I think it's because they established that really early in that they were friends, they wouldn't, they're not friends. And then you're kind of seeing Elrond claw his way back and then they have interpersonal drama. You're seeing Duren like try to like go out there and like forgive him and show him like that he forgives him. Then you've got Duren's home life with his wife. And again, she's, and he's dealing with like Prince hood kind of, and like wants to be king, but he's not making the right decisions for like the people. Yeah. Being a bit selfish, but he's doing the right things. But his dad's holding him back. There's multiple things going on. There's at least four characters with interpersonal drama. Like the king doesn't. Diese is the wife and she's like, come on, maybe give him a chance. But then she's also power hungry. Like that kind of shows at the end where she's like, that old man is twisted. Like you're going to be king. You can be the king. So it's like, okay. She's kind of like poisoning his ear a little bit, but his whole story kind of just revolves around the dwarves control the mythril. The elves need the mythril to save their world. Well, they don't even know that they need the mythril honestly. They do. It's like, it's kind of implied. They're like, maybe we need something. Did you find anything, Elrond? And he's like, I swore an oath. But the mythril is a myth. No one actually has ever seen it. It's in a story kind of. Yeah. Elrond didn't know that that's what he was looking for. Or that's why he was even there. Elrond went to get builders to help build. It's just 500 IQ, elven king, like, a caliber brick. Like, he's a brick. Like the king elf sucks in this and he's just annoying like. Elf king sucked. The elf king in the hobbit sucked as well. I've heard that he's supposed to be cool as hell though. But yeah, and then like his story kind of just wraps up. Duren vanishes. Duren vanishes when his dad is like, "I take from you your power!" And like takes off his little gold chain. And then he just kind of sulks at home because they got caught mining mithril. He really doesn't get much screen. Elwyn gets banished. Just the gifted amount. And turns that into the Rings of Power. But the least connected storyline to anything that's kind of- And the worst. Don't forget that, Daniel. I don't think it's the worst. I think Galadriel is easily the worst storyline. No, because nothing actually happens. I guess. It's the first 10 minutes of Lord of the Rings how Frodo decides to go on an adventure, but they spend that over 15 minutes an episode for eight episodes. No hobbit has ever wanted to adventure, my man. Except this one, which is kind of why it gives me acolyte vibes of like- Before Frodo. Yeah. Before Bilbo, this was the original Adventure Hobbit. But they, they try and set up like this law around this race of halflings. And then they- Harfoots. Harfoots. And then they destroy that law within their own storytelling. Like their whole culture is built around where traveling folk were superstitious. And if you can't make the great journey, then we'll leave you behind. But then they're like, no half foot ever gets left behind. And then they're like, well, we're leaving everyone behind again. We're never leaving anyone behind again. It's like, yeah. Okay. From a writing point of view, they're terrible. I don't know. At least the characters are more likable. Like they have a personality, I guess. Whereas like when you're watching Galadriel, everything's stale. It's cause they're children, I think. Yeah. Like they've got some life in them. [BLANK_AUDIO] 3000 year old vampire. So basically Brandy Foote's whole storyline is when will my life begin? Like I. So then a meteor comes from the sky and Because they use very similar imagery to Gandalf. Yeah. Like at one point he needs to threaten her, I think in episode two. And they cave the world in like they do when Gandalf threatens Bilbo. Like he gets really big and like everything goes dark. So it's like they're using identical imagery. But then they're trying to hinge on the fact that we don't know who this mysterious guy is. Who could it be? Look at this mystery. And also he speaks in like that kind of rune. Elvish speak. That Gandalf speaks in whatever he uses magic as well. And he whispers to a Firefly like Gandalf. And when he's fighting those weirdos, it's like the fight is very like reminiscent of the Saruman and Gandalf fight. That's very much we need a fight at the end of our show. We need him to do something, make him do something. They're basically just adventuring the whole time. Like they're just kind of hanging out. They try to bait and switch you that the stranger is Sauron, not Gandalf. But if you've been paying any attention, you're like, oh, it's not actually. This story just kind of revolves around like she's kind of excomputing herself and her family because she's harboring this man who they think is like a sign of the end of times. It's very kids movie. He's just a big old fella and he's like remember the movie about the kid that gets the Loch Ness Monster in his bathtub. Yes. Legend of the Deep or something. Okay. It's the And she's like, "Oh no, what if my parents and my community find out?" No. But again, the people are relatively charming. That's a weird lot of singing, but it also just goes on for way too long. Again, this whole show could have been a two-hour movie. Yeah, their stuff just like, it just feels very repetitive. Like, it's like they're very cyclical and like, they're storytelling. It's the same every episode, yeah. Same every episode. Basically, he starts doing something magical. She goes, "No!" And then she gets hurt, and then she runs away scared. And I forgive you and then he does it again the next episode. But then in the last episode, they're being followed by three of the ugliest people I've ever seen by them and them and friends. And they attack them basically. And then Gandalf evaporates them and that's that over. And you're like, okay, cool. Glad we did that. And then they walk off. So they have literally no connection to the overall story. Well, they were like, we are servants of you, Lord Sauron. And you're like, very quickly into character and creature design in this show was pretty good. Like the orcs looked amazing. I do feel a bit bad that we haven't talked about the fact that the show looks fantastic. Looks good. They don't do enough with like the locations they're obviously filming in. I think they could have been way more like panning shots and just like long scenery shots. You probably see the most of like scenery and the world in like Arandias story. And even there barely enough rolling hills. Yeah. I think you only really see it once or twice. Considering they're shooting in the same place as Lord of the Rings, like they're in New Zealand. There's very little landscape. People always talk about how Lord of the Rings is just one big advertisement for New Zealand. No. Like they do go to multiple different areas, but yeah, none of it feels real. Yes. Whereas. But overall, I mean like the show, it was, it was just another mid show getting pumped out. I'd say mid to low because honestly it goes for too long. Yes, it goes for a very long time with nothing happening. I changed my answer. This was, this was dog shit. I wouldn't watch it again. Oh, no way. No way. I'd rather just watch a recap like ours. I don't think anyone's really talked about this show for two years. So I kind of. what the discourse was around it. Yeah. So I was like, oh, we'll check it out because the new one's coming and I do want a bit of a refresher. Why do people hate this again? That's why I forgot because. So basically the stories boil down to Galadriel wants to find Sauron, accidentally finds Sauron. Elrond gets sent to find Mithril, finds Mithril for the Rings of Power. Arandir is kind of just around, honestly. Arandir gets the family he's always wanted. It does end with him like having a happy family. But realistically all he did was show that the orcs exist still. What do we want from season two? I want a big battle. Well good news, I have heard that there's a massive battle spanning two or three episodes. And they're calling it the biggest battle in TV show history. So maybe we won't have to wait six episodes. Well I wonder if they're just gonna do the same thing. It's gonna be four or five people that we're cutting to in the battle. So they don't have to show the entire time. I hope there's not nearly this many storylines. And I hope it has more direction now. Well we're gonna get it, but we don't really need to see Brandyfoot anymore. Like she's going on an adventure with Gandalf. So maybe Gandalf and Brandyfoot can just show up like, "Oh they ventured and turned, they've showed up in the battle, in the middle of the battlefield" or something. Yeah like everything that they do is probably going to be pretty inconsequential. Because I don't think Gandalf's allowed to get too involved. Because the Hobbit has to happen. It's gonna be the Sauron tricks the elves again. Yeah. Even though both Elrond and Galadriel know that Sauron's around and can shapeshift. So if they're not very suspicious of everyone, like how is Sauron gonna get anything done? How are they gonna make so many more rings? Everything and nothing's gonna happen. It'll be a lot easier to talk about weekly, which is something. Although we have a three episode premiere. We'll have to sit down for three hours. That's gonna destroy us tonight, tomorrow night. Jesus Christ. Yeah, join us then for that shenanigans. Hey, let us know what you thought of the show below.