Rings Of Power: Episode 4 Was Marginally Better Than Ep. 3, But Still Far From Great

This is getting a little concerning at this point. Rings of Power: Episode 4-“The Great Wave” was a little better than the previous episode, but the quality of writing for the characters and plot has seriously taken a nosedive from the heights of Episode 1 and 2.

This show has a MAJOR problem that will doom Rings of Power if Amazon doesn’t fix it immediately: Galadriel.

She is becoming a Mary Sue, and a really obnoxious, arrogant one at that. The entire Numenor plotline, which was one of the three main focuses of this episode, was easily the worst one because of her presence. If she’s not insulting and demeaning every member of the Numenorean royal court to the point of treason, she’s performing miraculous, dangerous feats that would be dangerous and hard-fetched for Sauron himself.

I don’t know how she hasn’t had her head chopped off by this point. She has openly insulted Queen-Regent Tar Miriel at least 6-7 times at this point, while also escaping the confides of her house arrest at least two times. Any other person would have been executed, especially if they were an elf, but Galadriel is seemingly fine to do whatever.

In this episode alone, Galadriel returned to the royal court openly (even though she escaped her tower cell the previous episode), insulted the Queen-Regent again by essentially calling her a coward and weak, escaped her jail cell by beating up four armed, armored guards with nothing but her hands, climbed up a 100+ foot tower to break into the king’s chambers, bickered and then reconciled with Tar Miriel in one conversation, and then convinced the Queen-Regent to send Numenorean armies, led by Galadriel, to fight in the Southlands even though they hate Elves.

Whew, that was a lot to write. But, still, despite covering a season-long story arc for most characters on most shows in one episode, doesn’t all of this just seem a little bit too…contrived.

Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Amazon-Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power-SDCC Trailer) — Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
(Amazon-Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power-SDCC Trailer)

How did Galadriel really scale a 100+ foot tower? Why did Tar Miriel all of a sudden forgive Galadriel for not only insulting her, but also breaking into the bedchambers where her sickly father was sleeping?

Why did Chancellor Ar-Pharazon and the rest of the Numenoreans just willingly sail to the Southlands with Galadriel just because she said so (okay, I know the tree leaves fell off, but is that really going to convince a whole host of people to renege on their hatred on the Elves and Valar)? And when did the Numenorean guards become so pitiful that they could get defeated by an unarmed, unarmored prisoner in a tight space?

Realistically, they should have sliced Galadriel to bits in that moment. Actually, even in Tolkien’s lore, Galadriel probably doesn’t make it out of that moment alive as she didn’t use any magic, nor did she use a weapon to throw four Numenorean guards into a jail cell.

Rushing through the plot and character arcs was a major concern of mine from the beginning. When Amazon only ordered 8-episodes at an hour in length each, it was always going to be a difficult task to develop season long plots and character arcs in only 8 or so hours.

Some plots have remained unscathed, while others have been heavily impacted. Unfortunately, Galadriel and the Numenorean plotline has been one of the plots affected by this silly storytelling decision thus far.

Anyway, the story arc with Arondir, Bronwyn, Theo, and the orcs in the Southlands have finally revealed what the orcs were looking for: Theo’s sword. Somehow or another this blood-drawing sword is extremely important to the orcs and their father-like figure, Adar, and they have obviously stopped at nothing (aside from sunlight, that is) to retrieve it.

I’m guessing it has to be Sauron’s blade, or maybe Morgoth’s.

Nevertheless, there was also a cool battle scene between Arondir, Theo, and Bronwyn and the orcs when they finally figured out Theo took the sword. It’s kind of funny seeing the orcs have to cover up from the sunlight as everyone in the modern world does by putting on sunscreen. I guess even orcs can suffer from UV light too.

Though, the most interesting thing about this whole plot is the true identify of Adar. The orcs in this episode revered this burned, gloomy elf as if he was their father as crazy as that might sound. What’s even crazier is that Adar, who’s name in Elvish means ‘father’, acted as a father-figure to the orcs too.

Now, I don’t think the orcs ever viewed Sauron as their father, so I don’t think Adar is the Dark Lord. But could he actually be their father, even though he was clearly an elf? According to Tolkien’s lore, he wrote that one of the origins of the orcs actually came from the elves.

Supposedly, all the way back in the beginning of the First Age, Morgoth found and captured some elves and tortured them into become the maligned, green, hobbled figures that the peoples of Middle Earth so often fought against. Maybe Adar was a failed orc-experiment, as he has scars covering his face and ears, but is still loyal to Morgoth and Sauron? Or maybe he just joined Morgoth willingly?

I don’t know, his identity is tough to figure out. But, if I heard Adar right, I think he said that the falling meteor (Meteor Man) was a sign of Sauron’s return. Or something like that. Wouldn’t it be funny if the Harefoots were responsible for rescuing and nurturing the Dark Lord to health.

Oh, and we finally figured out why that old guy from the trailers was so creepy: it’s because he was an agent of Sauron. I shouldve guessed, but I though he was just crazy and rambling on about the Dark Lord as some sort of omen prophet.

Okay, as for the Elrond and Durin IV plotline, this was easily the best one of the episode. The relationship between Elrond and Durin’s family is very believable and enjoyable to watch because it has been developed over these past four episodes, unlike some of the other relationships on this show.

As for the plot itself, essentially Elrond was able to convince the Dwarves to build Celebrimbor’s tower and he discovered that Durin has found Mithril. That’s pretty much it.

Sure, it’s simple and not overly complicated as the Numenor one, but that is what makes it good. It focuses on the characters and what drives them, rather than forcing them to do what the plot needs from them.

As for Episode 4-“The Great Wave”, I’d give it a 7.6/10. It was marginally better than Episode 3, but not that much better. Moreover, another criticism I have is that the dialogue for this episode has a terrible mixture of sounding like something Tolkien would write, while also sounding as if Rings of Power was set in the modern world. Did people in the medieval times say words like ‘sedition’ and ‘statecraft’?

I’m pretty sure those are more modern words.

Furthermore, Galadriel’s bad characterization is really derailing a huge portion of this series for me, which is why I can’t give this episode an 8.0 or higher. The cinematography still looks great (even if the world feels a bit empty), while the sets are phenomenal.