The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2

This Thursday, the final episode of Season 2 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power was released on Amazon Prime Video. Season 2 continues the stories of Galadriel, Elrond, Celebrimbor, Isildur, and others as they fight against the Orcs and Sauron's goal to conquer Middle Earth. The Lord of the Rings is my favorite movie of all time and I enjoyed season one a good deal so I was very interested to see how season 2 turned out.

Overall, I enjoyed season 2 a good deal more than season 1. Season 1 felt like it took a little longer to get going and season 2 jumped right in on the story. I liked how this season had a lot more action sequences with several huge-scale battles. This season also had a lot of stronger storylines with the Forging of the Rings plot being the most notable. This season does a great job of growing Sauron as a character. In LOTR we know very little about him but in this show, we get to see how smart and cunning he is and how he manages to manipulate everyone in getting him into power. I think showing Sauron in this series actually makes him a better character in the LOTR. I also thought that this season did a lot better job of furthering Elrond as a character. I'm not a fan of the actor cast as him but I thought that the story this season did a great job of growing his character. I like that this season also included characters omitted from the books such as Tom Bombadil. He is such a fun character in the books and it was so cool to finally see him on screen.

While I enjoyed a lot about this season, there are some aspects that I wish were better. I don't like how they weakened Galadriel as a character. This is the same character that we see kick Sauron to Kingdom Come in The Hobbit but here she is constantly getting kicked around, stabbed, and captured. One of the other issues I have is an issue I have with all prequel shows is that they try to instill a false sense of stakes for characters we obviously know survive. There are multiple moments where characters are made out to be killed or missing but obviously, we know they survive as they are in LOTR. This is a pet peeve I have with movies. My final issue is that the different storylines seem disconnected with several made out like the season was interested in telling them. In season 1 almost all of the plot lines come together in the end. However, here there are several plots such as the Numanor politics, the stranger stuff, and the Dwarves politics that have nothing to do with anything else and just kind of pop in and out of the season taking away from the main Rings plot.

Overall, this was another solid season of The Rings of Power. While it is considerably better than season 1, some issues still keep it from being as good as LOTR.

Score: 7.5/10 Grade: B Recommendation: Check it out if you are a Lord of the Rings fan