Udûn Episode is Probably The Best Rings of Power Can do
At last! Something happened in Rings of Power! The plot advances and we get our big climax of season one, or at least a climax. Who knows, perhaps there is another one waiting in the last couple episodes. So, was it enough to silence the critics and win back the wavering fans who didn’t get much out of the previous episode? For some, yes. I think it did. For most, I doubt Udûn is enough to save Amazon’s precious from free fall.
WARNING: SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 6
World-building is not something the writers of Rings of Power concerned themselves with when writing season one. They also weren’t too concerned with the confusing time lines and distances presented in this episode. These tedious little details just aren’t important. That much is clear.
For a show that calls itself a Tolkien adaptation, to not sweat the details is infuriating to fans. It is literally anti-Tolkien. Then again, perhaps this is the best they can do. The show runners and many of the writers have extremely thin filmographies on IMDB. They are likely the most inexperienced writer’s room of any high profile, big budget show on TV right now and it is showing.
Let’s focus on the big WTF moments in this episode. First, Galadriel and the Numenoreans get across the sea in two or three days, then navigate the river and enter the Southlands on horseback all in what is mere days. How is that possible? These places are all supposed to be the size of small countries.
Some suggest it is because the subplots were happening at different times, allowing for a longer travel time from Numenor to Southlands/Mordor. However, the show all but told us these subplots were all happening at or near the same time, thanks to all of them seeing the comet. So, we are led to believe that they covered this vast territory and managed to find the one village under attack by orcs in the Southlands in mere days… right.
Second, the big objective was to unleash the waters from the reservoir into the trench and thus straight into Mount Doom to set it off. As turns out, there is a scenario where water can cause a volcanic event but definitely how Rings of Power depicted it. Again, not big on details.
But lets say in Middle Earth there is something to this particular water, this particular volcano, and that special sword hilt. Did the sword imbue the water with special eruption-causing powers? If all it took was opening the floodgate, that could’ve been done the old fashioned way. Unless there’s some secret reason that is stopping them from doing it, Adar and the orcs could just destroyed the dam. Clearly that structure was not built for sturdiness.
Now some questions on smaller matters:
The tower was held up by a single rope. Let that sink in. It was intentionally built that way. The Southlands folk didn’t weaken it, dismantle it, or anything to explain how it fell so easily. Why would anyone design a fortification in such a way?
Arondir claimed that a village with no fortifications sitting at the bottom of a valley offered a tactical advantage to the untrained, poorly armed villagers. No, it doesn’t. There is no amount of Middle Earth magic to make that statement true.
Where is this village? I thought the watch tower stood at the end of the valley. If the orcs are there, how did the villagers get back into the valley? Am I wrong here? Was Bronwyn’s village on the other side of the watch tower this whole time? If so, the orcs went past the watch tower to get to her people. Also, they would’ve had to cross paths during their retreat to the tower to begin with.
The geography of this show is baffling.
How did Numenor transport all those horses to Middle Earth? Remember, they told us that there were only three ships. They didn’t need to share that detail. They could’ve been nondescript and put in as many as they like via CGI. They said, one hundred men to a ship for 300 total, and 300 horses for them. Where were all these horses? Why give us specifics about your small expedition at all if you weren’t gonna bother being consistent?
How did the villagers get so good at fighting without training? There is zero mention of them training or knowing a single thing about combat.
The Numenorean volunteers were training to be infantry not cavalry. Why were they training on foot if they were all gonna fight on horseback?
Why send only 300 soldiers into an unknown tactical situation with your queen regent? Is she not that important to you? Numenor has no idea what is going on in the Southlands. No one should, yet they knew the exact nature of the threat thanks to Halbrand? Who left the place a while ago and unlikely knew the entire situation when he was there last.
No one bothered to check what was in the wrapped cloth, not even Arondir or Theo. The most important object to the conflict, the reason there was a battle at all, and no one bothered to gaze upon it or notice that it was shaped like an axe. Galadriel or Halbrand could’ve made this mistake easily since they didn’t know what the object was at the time. Bronwyn, Arondir and Theo have no excuse.
How did Theo know where it was in the tavern, sorry, keep? Arondir wanted to hide it so nobody but him knew where it was but failed at that miserably. It was in the keep! Of all places to hide the one thing…
Why does Galadriel speak like a war criminal?
Does it bother anyone that the writers of this show see anger as a source of strength?
How does anyone survive a blast from a volcano? Are they all dead?
…
Enough bashing those pesky world-building details. Let’s look at it from a higher level. Was this a good episode that provides some momentum to the show?
For some of the audience, it probably did. Treated as generic fantasy, this show is decent and benefits from a nice big budget. Some of the landscapes are truly beautiful and breathtaking. I particularly liked the Mount Doom eruption at the end of this episode. Most of the battle was exciting to watch as well, even if it tactically didn’t make a lot of sense.
In most other ways the episode was mediocre to average, at best. The dialogue is inconsistent, with great lines in some scenes, cringy ones in others. The borrowing of dialogue and mimicking of scenes from the movies was likely meant to be a strange form of fan service. I suppose in some ways this works, but in others they are using the words but getting the meaning completely wrong. (“not all who wander are lost” song lyric, the most blatant example).
There is also the scale of the battle not really matching up to the dramatic music and underlying importance of the stakes. Since we don’t know what the Sauron sword was supposed to do, the fight seemed more like a skirmish with limited consequences for Middle Earth as a whole.
The end of the episode revealed the stakes, which actually was clever but it would’ve help if the characters didn’t treat it like the epic battle of the age. It was as if the show wanted to pretend it was their Helm’s Deep. Sorry, but it is highly doubtful the audience saw it that way up until the eruption. It is unclear if that reveal was enough to overcome the flawed execution up to that point.
There also could’ve been more setup for the importance or ominous presence of Mount Doom, a known volcano. We also don’t yet know the connection between Mount Doom and Sauron in this age. We know its importance later, but what about in the here and now of Rings of Power?
For better or worse, this was their epic battle for season one. Did it hook you back in? If so, that’s awesome. Keep enjoying the show and feel free to ignore all critics.
Unfortunately, most are unable to separate this show from Tolkien’s books, Peter Jackson’s movies, and the extremely high bar those masterpieces set. Amazon is just not up to the task. Perhaps no one is.