Breaking Down The Rings of Power - Ep 3
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
Breakdown
One of the coolest moments of this episode was the introduction of Numenor. Here is a quick breakdown of the Island country:
Numenor is an island between the elven immortal continent(Aman) and middle earth.
You can see Numenor right in the middle here. The elves gifted the island to the men that fought with them against Morgoth, who is basically the emperor to Sauron's Darth Vader. The Elves also gifted them the gift of super long life and wisdom. Aragorn descended from these guys, and he is actually in his 80s during the events of the movies.
This dude is Ar Pharazon, the Brother of the King of Numenor. When the King dies, he forces his niece to marry him, making him king of Numenor. At some point, Numenor is going to realize that Sauron is too powerful. He invades Mordor with an army so strong that Sauron's entire army deserts him before ever fighting them. Sauron plays into Ar Pharazon's ego, calling him the superior leader before surrendering.
Sauron goes to Numenor as a prisoner but slowly begins to corrupt the men until he winds up being Pharazon's chief advisor. Pharazon is getting old and wants to become immortal, and Sauron convinces him that the only way to do so is to invade the undying lands with his massive army, specifically Valinor. Eru, the main god in LOTR, said fuck you and sends a massive tidal wave that wipes out all of Numenor before they can attack. Only a few Numenorians escape, including Elendil and Isildur who we met in this episode.
They are Aragorn's ancestors. You can actually hear Aragorn yell the iconic ELENDIL battlecry in the Fellowship of the ring.
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They sail to Middle Earth and found the kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor. Later, when Sauron returns, they team up with the elves to defeat him as the last alliance of elves and men.
Elendil and Gil-Galad(who is the elf lord you saw in the two previous episodes) manage to take Sauron to the ground at the cost of their lives. That is when Isildur comes in and cuts the ring from Sauron's finger, making him mostly powerless. Isildur then gets corrupted by the ring, keeping it for himself instead of destroying it. That sets up a course where he is killed, losing the ring only for it to be found by Gollum later.
Numenorians are a really interesting race and I'm psyched we get to see them on screen.
As far as the rest of the episode goes, I had my theory confirmed that Halbrand will likely become a king that is later corrupted and turned into a Nazgul at some point. Possibly even the witch king. We also saw that the elves and other southland humans are being forced to dig underneath the land that will eventually become the Mordor we know from the movies. The fact that there is all that sulfur and shit on the surface confirms that, at least to me.
The big question is now simple: Who is Adar?
They set it up to seem like he is Sauron, but that is way too obvious. I think it is more likely that he is a corrupted elf of some kind. Arondir speaks elvish to him in the preview for the next episode, which makes me think that's the case.
REACTION
I think this was, by far, the strongest episode of the season so far. The world-building rocked, the CGI was legitimately breathtaking for a TV show and the dialogue was better than the last two. The slow-mo action was a little shaky and the Harfoot storyline is still kinda stinky, but I'm loving the rest of it so far. In fact, here is a power ranking of the storylines:
1. Galadriel/Halbrand
2. Elrond/Dwarves
3. Arondir/Bronwyn
4. Harfoots/The Stranger Meteor Man
House of the dragon is gonna win the culture war for the time being but I would recommend this as the shot to their chaser. The dialogue is a little dense and that can sometimes make the acting a little stiffer, but the storylines are mostly good and it is visually stunning.