I spent the first season of Rings of Power complaining about everything: acting, script, pacing. As a fan of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and various fantasy content, Amazon Prime Video’s super production – for me – was problematic at best and a mistake as a rule.

The choice to cast a beautiful Galadriel, but with a weak actress (Morfydd Clark) is still the series’ point of disarray. It is impossible to empathize with her or root for our heroine, always self-centered, arrogant and simply irritating. Not even on the return was it possible to reverse this narrative: every time she is on the scene we can be sure that we will root for Sauron (Charlie Vickers) instead of the elves. I guarantee that you feel the same.

Having said all that, I was surprised to have really enjoyed the step back taken by the writers who took advantage of the return to align the various plots so that everything is understandable. The plot has a simple proposal – Sauron will create a single ring to rule over all – but the paths to get there are complex (there are several peoples, plots and subplots) and betting on a non-linear narrative does not help the layman. So, after a simple and direct recap, we finally see why Adar (played here by Sam Hazeldine, replacing Joseph Mawle from season 1) thought he had killed Sauron and how the evil being managed to return as a kind of Venom from the Middle Lands and deceive everyone, especially the obstinate Galadriel.

The story is now surrounded by Sauron’s plan to “give himself over” to Adar, who did not recognize him in the first confrontation last season, creating more confusion for us. The fact is that Sauron literally had another appearance – a door for the unexpected and welcome appearance of Jack Lowden, our beloved River Cartwright from Slow Horses, in a mere minute cameo – as well as our own Adar! hahha Seriously now, Adar’s change is not mentioned, but Sauron’s gained the prologue that shows him as an ambitious young man (Lowden) who is attacked by Adar, presumed dead, but as a being half Voldemort, half Venom, half Dracula, he slowly regained his human form, let the men who saved him drown (before stealing the coat of arms that confused Galadriel who considered him King of the humans) and is finally one step away from conquering the world, already with the face we knew him as before.

All this progress to where the story goes was quick and well-aligned, finally Sauron makes some sense to us now. He knew he could return to Mordor without risk when Adar did not recognize him, so his game is now double.

Among the Elves, Galadriel continues her egotistical and unstructured adventure to destroy Sauron, but Elrond (Robert Aramayo) doubts not only her ability, but even more her impartiality in the whole proposal, questioning whether Sauron has not manipulated her from the beginning.

Therefore, there is a significant promise of improvement in the story. I will still check out the other two episodes available. Will I change my mind?

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