« Adar » inches the Lord of the Rings prequel’s story forward, but first it needs to remind you that the peoples of Middle-earth really don’t like each other.
The Lord of the Rings is a story about disparate societies coming together in the name of good—and casting aside generations of mistrust and prejudice to do so. Hobbits being unlikely heroes, Dwarves standing side-by-side with Elves, Rohan riding to Gondor’s aid, it’s an idea key to the fabric of the narrative, and so it makes sense that Rings of Power is making it key to its own story too.
“Adar,” the third episode of The Rings of Power, feels very much in step with its premiere last week in that it shares a lot of the same strengths and flaws Amazon’s lavish new series began with—just manifesting in slightly different ways. The series still keeps its grand scale and eye-wateringly-expensive beauty as we’re whisked away to the island of Númenor alongside Galadriel and Halbrand. The series is still almost achingly slow as it has to balance this—and many slow motion shots of everything from vistas to Galadriel riding a horse, as if to remind us to be looking at its fantastical excess as much and as often as possible—and its other plotlines, with far-off-disconnected characters like Nori and the Stranger, as the latter is discovered by the rest of the Harfoots, or Arondir, as he finds himself captured by Orcs.
But there is some progress made nonetheless, and with it comes more of the promise that Rings of Power has lying beyond its expensive spectacle. Although the episode is named for the mysterious Orcish master that Arondir and his fellow elves—and the humans of the Southlands—have been captured in the name of, its focus is largely, and rightfully, on Galadriel and Halbrand as they find themselves saved by a Númenorean sea guard ship and brought to the mystical island nation. There, we get to see a fascinating introduction; Halbrand might be human, but he’s never heard or even contemplated the idea of what an advanced human society such as Númenor could look like in his life. Galadriel, meanwhile, an Elf, can see the long game: she knows the history of how Númenor came to be and its original purpose, but she also knows that with the passage of that history there has come change, and Númenor is no longer a representation of that, thanks to Eldar and Valar alike for the humans that stood alongside them against Morgoth.
