Review: The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power, "Shadow And Flame" | Season 2, Episode 8
And in the darkness, bind them
I’ve been hard on the second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and I don’t feel particularly bad about that. It’s a messy, awkward show, a forced effort at exploiting a pre-existing fanbase by a conglomerate trying to add prestige to its brand name; and while most television shows start with some level of mercenary vibes, RoP has struggled to shed its arguable pointlessness and establish its own identity. Is it an extension of the Jackson films? An attempt to offer a new angle on the work of the father of modern fantasy writing? A gorgeous waste of money to eat up a lazy weekend or two?
The answer remains unclear, but while I can’t entirely put my cynicism aside, I do think the second season has corrected at least some of the problems of the first, and the final two episodes are, I’d say, the best the show has yet produced. Last week’s focus on Eregion achieved a claustrophobia and intensity that’s been sorely lacking for much of the rest of the season, and this week’s finale, “Shadow and Flame” moves forward on that energy, finding satisfying conclusions to most of the season’s ongoing plotlines, and establishing the stakes going forward into season three. For once, the long running time wasn’t entirely egregious, and while the episode continued the apparent series tradition of never quite knowing when to stop, I was engaged throughout.