Rings of Power S1E6

Ok WHAT? Intensity before this episode: sure. Intensity now: boy. The violence got brutal, the valor was elevated, the despair total. We get rumors of ancient power. We get a volcano -- is that Mount Doom? I actually need to comprehend several key things. Where are we in Middle Earth? Are we near Mordor before it was Mordor? What's Udun again? I know Gandalf says "flame of Udun" on the bridge of Khazad Dum... is Udun just Morgoth? Super interesting that Adar is one of the original fallen elves. I'm super interested to see how the show treat's Sauron. Actually I guess it'll have to be in some similar vein to Sauron in the LotR flashbacks. I'd forgotten he never takes bodily form in LotR, so I'm just remembering those flashbacks. That was around this time period, so presumably Sauron has a body but not a very human one. Anyway I like seeing one of the original orcs / twisted elves.

The orc siege in the Southlands was absolutely what I needed. Those kinds of battles are so desperate, those sieges, like Helm's Deep or the Long Night or the Pelennor or the Blackwater. It started distancing RoP from its YA origins. It was bloody and despairing. Super interesting that twisting the sword of Sauron (?) breaks a dam which erupts the volcano (?). It's one of those stupid things that are actually not stupid when you dig into the lore... unless they fabricated the whole affair for this series, which I think is partly true, but I bet there's some real lore to it. If Tolkien had anything to do with this dam/volcano situation, I bet it's going to be awesome.

The show stepped up in this episode. It feels real now.

Obviously still way too much deus ex machine, way too much riling up a crowd, way too much being interrupted at the moment of most tension.