Finally got to this, just as the next episode comes out... them's the breaks.
I agree with the comments on the pacing - some plotlines (the Harfeet especially) felt like they were just marking time until they can hit their next big event.
Numenor - is
exceedingly pretty. Very Byzantium, I love it. I'm pleased to see the Elendil family is all present (Anarion gets mentioned, with the implication maybe being that he's hanging out in Andunie being all pro-elfy), and that we finally know why Miriel (whose name is mentioned once) is Queen Regent: her dad is still alive! I suspect he's still officially king as well, since she's ruling on his behalf.
I'm assuming her anti-elf stance is a ploy - she certainly seemed to be sounding out Elendil to see whether he would be a good ally. We shall see.
Halbrand - is still Budget Viggo, and turns out he's Budget Aragorn as well. Very strange. The symbol was even vaguely Gondorian. I love his repeated pickpocket hugs/pats thing; it's so blatant!
Galadriel - is still very standoffish, I'm growing tired of that. The reveal that the "sigil" is actually just a map was hilarious. ^_^
The Southlands - in this episode, the orc camp is firmly placed west of the Sea of Nurn. Given that the orcs were coming from the east, the Southlands pretty much have to be southern Gondor.
Team Arondir's fight with the orcs was fairly standard fantasy fare, except for:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Oddwen
The warg looked like what a chihuahua thinks they look like.
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That.
Internet rumour says that Adar is an elf. I'm gonna roll the dice on First Age Elves and say he's actually... oh, Daeron, why not?
HarFEET - were just marking time. I didn't enjoy them as much this episode, possibly because they spent so much time in the dark. The consequences of the plot here were effectively nothing - we still end up with Nori and family on the road, with the Stranger tagging along, just like if he'd stayed out of sight and simply followed.
Actually, the Arondir section didn't advance the plot much either. Given the total absence of Lindon, Eregion, Moria, and even Bronwyn, it definitely felt like they had trouble lining things up; this was a filler episode for everyone except the Numenor cast.
(The subtitles reveal that there's a lot of familiar names among Isildur's buddies - Imrahil and Valandil cropped up for sure. Given that Tolkien did the same thing for the Stewards of Gondor, I suppose it's permissible.)
~
One thing this episode does show is how silly some of the overreactions were to rumours before the show was released. Months ago it was announced that they had hired an intimacy/nudity coordinator of some ilk, and that the scene they were concerned about was a slave camp where elves were being turned into orcs. Oh, the protests that raised!
Yeah, turns out it was just a prison camp where they weren't even nude. The same person probably checked in on Galadriel's dress during the raft scenes. All the fuss was over something that didn't even happen.
hS