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Old 10-14-2022, 09:01 PM   #4
Boromir88
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I must admit that was a satisfying end to a season finale. It's just nice to have some key characters revealed and seeing a general direction of where the showrunner's creation is heading. There are issues I have mostly with the pacing and writing overall in Season 1. I'm not sure if it will get better, but at least the finale paid off to leave me interested and anticipating Season 2. I can enjoy a slow burn, if done well, but the middle episodes felt more like a slog and unnecessary time filler more than actually progressing anywhere. Now watching the pay off, my interests are piqued again to imagine where future seasons will go.

So, I was expecting to hate it if Halbrand turned out to be Sauron. Now that I know he is, I actually don't hate it. Part of it might be I just wasn't interested in the Galadriel/Halbrand plot. After the previous episode, I was wrapping my head around Halbrand is probably going to be Sauron, so let's see how they pull this "reveal" off. I think both actors stepped up and into their roles in the finale that I'm ok with it. I like a Sauron 2nd Age redemption fanfiction and glad they went that route with someone who was redeemed after Morgoth's defeat. They left open a potential that if Galadriel never brought Halbrand to Middle-earth, or even indeed if he was never brought to Eregion, perhaps events would have played out differently. I like the Halbrand is Sauron better than I thought I would, because of the Sauron 2nd Age "fair form" redemption after Morgoth's defeat is a good story.

It convinces me that the showrunners understand the source material and are inspired by the story they're adapting. I see it in their portrayal of the orcs, the trenches, the pay off in the Halbrand/Sauron plot. I would even say, I've seen enough where they understand the story more than Peter Jackson did. So, why am I still kind of disappointed and not immediately taken in like I was with Peter Jackson's films?

Well, I think to Jackson's credit, he put better people around him, and more qualified experts from the Tolkien community that at times he listened to. The pacing was far better (I'm speaking strictly of the LOTR trilogy, btw), but I also must admit pacing for 3, 3+hour films is going to be different than a 50-hour episodic series. That's part of it, but the main source of disappointment with Season 1 is it seemed to play this odd, middle-ground. I honestly think I would have liked it more if they had gone crazier with it, instead of this quasi-don't break too far from Jackson's films so we can appeal to those fans. They tempted us with some bold and crazy ideas (that from a fanfiction POV might have worked or completely bombed), but in the end decided to not want to stray too far from the films, or PJ's visions. Even hitting it over our heads with the similar movie quotes this episode. That's my main disappointment.

Maybe the story-telling kinks will get worked out in future seasons, maybe not? I don't know, but like I said I do know that the finale at least did its job to answer what I wanted answered at this point. They finally got to the forging of the 3 rings. The ring verse song in the end credits was wonderful as well.

That's kind of all I have time for at the moment, getting sleepy. There's more, smaller tidbits with the episode I enjoyed, that I'll put in the cherry-picking thread.
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Last edited by Boromir88; 10-14-2022 at 09:04 PM.
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