Review: The Eagle and the Sceptre

Shit. I liked it.

That was a nicely done hour of television about how the lure of power thwarts family relationships and uses good intentions for evil ends. It’s the best original work to come out of the Legendarium in 12 years. Did The Rings of Power always have the capacity to do an episode like this? I’m not sure, but a Hannibal writer sure was able to pull this off.

Perhaps the main thing this did right was focusing on the show’s more interesting plot threads. We’re finally back to the Númenóreans, who provide some really strong drama. The scenes with Isildur are genuinely moving, showing him as a guilt-ridden young man desperate to make a mark. It turns him from the corruptible scapegoat of The Fellowship of the Ring‘s prologue into a tragic figure.

Helen Shang makes similar overtures with Celebrimbor and the Durins. They fall prey to Annatar’s machinations because of their desire to make a mark or survive. The Durins want to save Khazad-dûm and preserve their way of life, so they provide Celebrimbor with materials to forge the Seven Dwarf-rings. Celebrimbor is willing to lie to Gil-galad to save his legacy. Characters who come across in appendix form as tools become sympathetic, even noble figures whose attempts to help are doomed by history.

There are lots of neat details too. Adar having an Orc family humanizes the Orcs in a way I would never have imagined last season. The Ents showing up is nice, and the Eagles get established as a crucial symbol for Númenor instead of the deus ex machina they’re (somewhat unfairly) tarnished as. This episodes positions the Rings of Power that characters try to use to redeem themselves. And it screws them all in an act of glorious tragedy. This episode reaches into the Legendarium, seizes on Tolkien’s themes, and finds new things to say about them.

I can’t believe it. Just this once, The Rings of Power has elevated The Lord of the Rings.