‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ Episode 1 Recap: That’s What I’m Tolkien ‘Bout

Once upon a time, a being with unlimited power and resources crafted a device to dominate all human life. But enough about Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos! We’re here to talk about The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Bezos’s billion-dollar baby — a massive gamble designed to capitalize on the blockbuster success of Peter Jackson’s two Tolkien trilogies, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, by bringing the world of Middle-earth to the small screen with a big-screen budget in hopes of creating the next Game of Thrones fantasy sensation. 

Never mind Amazon’s still-ongoing previous attempt at this, The Wheel of Time, or HBO’s own hit GoT spinoff, House of the Dragon, or even Netflix’s knockoff, The Witcher. Can a show with the most Oscar-winning movie in film history (give or take a Ben-Hur) in its rearview mirror, based on whatever pseudo-historical ephemera Amazon could acquire the rights to, possibly live up to its predecessors?

The answer, based on this premiere episode, is a very very qualified yes? With a question mark? The Rings of Power looks every bit as expensive at it is, with very little of the chintziness you might expect from a second- or third-generation product of Jackson & Company’s original iteration of this universe. (I’m not wild about the Elf-scout armor, but everything else feels legit, right down to those pointy ears.) And despite the dubious canonicity of many of the show’s events and characters, everything still feels very…Tolkienesque. In other words, if you were expecting — or hoping for — an instant and obvious bellyflop, you’re going to be disappointed.

Both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings started small, each focusing on a single hairy-footed protagonist, Bilbo and Frodo Baggins respectively, before using them as a lens with which to explore the wider world and an array of supporting characters. Not so The Rings of Power. Though Morfydd Clark’s Galadriel is without question the show’s leading lady — when you’re a recognizable name and a character of immense power played by a human being who looks like Clark, it’s kind of unavoidable — the show’s premiere utilizes an around-the-horn-style structure to roll out several narratives and protagonists at once.

First up is Galadriel herself, whom we meet as an actual child — a rare sight in the latter years of Tolkien’s legendarium given the Elves’ immortal lifespans, and an indication of just how far back this story is taking us. During the centuries-long war that erupts between the Elves, their allies, and the forces of Sauron’s old boss and mentor Morgoth, her brother Finrod (Will Fletcher) is killed by Sauron, leaving Galadriel with a lifelong grudge against Morgoth’s most powerful lieutenant. (And when you’re an Elf, lifelong grudges last a long time indeed.)

Flash forward countless years later, long after the war has ended and Morgoth has been defeated forever. Unconvinced that Sauron followed his master into oblivion, Galadriel leads a small force of Elves into the frozen wastes of the north, uncovering a secret fortress, a cache of experimented-upon orc corpses, a mysterious sigil that indicates Sauron’s presence, and one lone and large snow troll. Despite the fact that she’s just amassed a mountain of evidence in favor of her theory that Sauron lives, her followers mutiny, and she’s forced back to the Elven kingdom of Lindon. There she receives a hero’s welcome — and the news that she’s been granted passage over the sea to the heavenly land of Valinor. (That’s Elf-heaven, for the uninitiated.)

There’s just one problem, as she explains to her younger friend and future Hobbit/LotR mainstay Elrond (Robert Aramayo), presented here as just a good-natured dude who’s training to follow in the footsteps of the High King Gil-Galad (Benjamin Walker) one day: While everyone says evil has been banished from Middle-earth, it’s still present in her heart. To her friends, this is reason enough why she should set sail to the Undying Lands of the West, where presumably her heart would be healed. To Galadriel, it’s evidence that her suspicions are correct, and her quest should continue.

In the end, she literally leaps overboard from the boat bringing her to Valinor and starts swimming back to Middle-earth. Michael Phelps, eat your heart out, I guess!

Elsewhere in the realm, we meet several much lower-ranking characters on the scale of all-powerfulness. Among these are Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova), a common Elf soldier assigned to a remote outpost that oversees a population of humans whose ancestors were loyal to Morgoth during the Great War. Despite their dubious provenance, he has nonetheless taken a shine to one of their number, a comely single mother named Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi), who in classic middle-ages-style filmmaking is made to stand out by the fact that she’s not caked in grime. 

While she and Arondir investigate a mysterious blight and ailment that has taken root in a village to the east of her own, her young son Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin) uncovers an artifact bearing the same Sauron sigil that the future Dark Lord carved into Finrod’s flesh and left in his abandoned fortress; it rapidly catches fire and seems to exert a hypnotic hold on the lad. Uh-oh.

Speaking of being caked in grime, that seems to be the default state of the race of hobbit antecedents called Harfoots, who anchor the remaining third of the episode. Presided over by a scholarly sort named Sadoc Burrows (Lenny Henry), the Harfoots are a nomadic people who live off the land. Our primary Harfoots are the brash young Elanor “Nori” Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh) and her bestie, the timid Poppy Proudfellow (Megan Richards). 

After a few ominous omens, the adventurous Nori follows a meteor to its crash site, where she discovers a full-sized human man curled up in the wreckage. (Odds are good that this is a character called “Oren,” played by Game of Thrones veteran Joseph Mawle, though who knows.)

And there you have it!

At this point, I want to state for the record that I am currently covering not only The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon, and in neither case do I feel it’s my job to adjudicate the differences between the books and the shows. The books are the books and the shows are the shows — two different media, two different sets of structures and demands and rewards. Ultimately, what matters is what winds up on screen, and how that comes across to the viewer.

That being said, I must admit that it’s extraordinarily difficult for a person like me — a guy who first read The Hobbit at age 5, who’s seen the LotR movies more times than I can count, who’s read Tolkien’s books to his children multiple times, who has the goddamned White Tree of Gondor tattooed on his arm — to formulate an equal appreciation for the canonical characters and the invented ones. Galadriel and Elrond, and even Finrod and Gil-galad — these are old friends of mine, dating back decades. Arondir and Bronwyn and Theo and Nori? To paraphrase Mariah Carey, I don’t know them.

But! The actors involved acquit themselves perfectly well in these largely unspectacular roles, particularly Ismael Cruz Cordóva as the steely-eyed, hard-bitten Elf scout Arondir. The landscapes look suitably Middle-earth-ian, and you can see the show’s immense budget in virtually every frame. I enjoy the just-folks version of Elrond a great deal, and while it’s weird to see Galadriel treated as some grunt rather than the radiant all-powerful queen that Cate Blanchett — isn’t that a more interesting depiction of her power than making her the franchise’s umpteenth troll-killing dagger-wielding badass? — Morfydd Clark pulls it off well enough.

“Pulls it off well enough” is a pretty good descriptor for the whole project, now that I think about it. With multiple seasons already in the works, this is going to be a slow, slow rollout of the overarching story, and I fear the show will suffer for it. But for now, it’s a bit like if one of Disney+’s many Star Wars series were made with an actual budget: If you enjoy this fictional world, hanging around in it for a while is a pleasant enough way to pass the time. And that’s where I’m at. Bring on episode two, and let’s get those rings a-forgin’!
Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.