We are facing some curious weeks, in the sense that the end of the first seasons of the big bets of 2022 tv fantasy. Although ‘The house of the dragon’ will still be with us for the rest of the month, ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ has one week left since today we have seen its seventh and penultimate episode.
From here, spoilers for ‘The Eye’, episode 1×07 of ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’.
After the intense, and spectacular finale of the previous episode, we return to the Southlands with Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) wrapped in ashes. An orange inferno engulfs the entire landscape after the brutal eruption of Mount Doom. The picture is bleak (more than usual in Tolkien’s adaptations), with several casualties occurring.
From there the elf will come out with Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin), marching towards the númenórean camp without much hope of finding the survivors of the eruption there. A curious adventure couple that works quite well as they roam the grounds trying not to be seen by the orcs of Adar.
Strangers and sectarians
But let’s go to the really interesting: the hairy. Nori (Markella Kavenagh) and family arrive at the settlement only to see that it has been destroyed by the exploding volcano. Ruined things, they try to see if The Stranger (Daniel Weyman) is able to fix it… however we have one more failure and disappointment from the young Brandipié. This entails the exile of the presumed mayawhose restorative magic is revealed after his departure.
The joy of this flourishing is interrupted by the arrival of the mysterious characters who carry the Eye as their symbol. The series does not reveal anything about them yet, except that they are probably (at least Birdie Sisson’s character) also magicians / maiar and that they could belong to the cult of Melkor. The encounter with these is fateful for the hairy people, who see what little they have left destroyed with the magic of this sinister trio.
The third scenario we have is, again, Khazâd-dumsite to which Elrond (Robert Aramayo) returns with Durin (Owain Arthur), to see if they are able to convince the king of the dwarves to excavate mithril and give it to the elves to save the race. The plan comes out as we feared: not only with the negative but also with the “caught” to the clandestine excavation of the precious metal and the expulsion of the elf (not without first taking a sample).
The calm before the end
The final stretch of the episode puts us in a situation facing the final episode of the episode: the hairy go in search of the Stranger, deep in the woods; humans moving to the mouth of the Anduin; the númenórean fleet goes home, with the queen’s (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) oath of revenge; Adar (Joseph Mawle) being cheered as lord of the newly christened Mordor and… the awakening of the Balrog from the depths of the Moria Mines.
A few open fronts in what comes a season finale in which we probably have a new threat from the forces of evil while we wait for answers: will we finally know where Sauron is? Who really is the Stranger and his pursuers? Will there be destruction? courtesy of the balrog?