After a largely disappointing premier, the audio-visual experience of the world presented by The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power acted as its saving grace. Experience wise it is too good to be on TV but vision/direction wise, the series seemed to be struggling to find its ground. But that is in the past because LOTR: The Rings of Power Episode 3 delivered a massively improved narrative and Episode 4 carries on the good work of its predecessor. So, without further ado, let us get to the our verdict for Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Episode 4! WARNING – MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD
Review Marathon – Episode 1 & 2 / Episode 3
Rating – ★★★★
Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Episode 4 Review – The Plot Thickens
The episode kicks off once again at a very sluggish pace and I feared it would end up being just like the premiere. However, it picked up the pace and towards the end it reminded us of the LOTR trilogy which made us all a fan of this saga. Certain dialogue exchanges between Elrond and Durin as well as Durin and his father pulled our heartstrings just like the OG trilogy did. That aside, the final moments where Miriel decided to assist Galadriel and deliver that rousing speech was also LOTR as its prime!
One massive drawback, however, is that even after four episodes, Lord of the Rings: ROP doesn’t seem to have a compelling antagonist. I mean we all know the main antagonist of the show is going to be Sauron (most probably Halbrand) but if my guess is correct, he won’t fully rise till season 2 or even season 3. Till then, fans need mini-bosses and so far Adar hasn’t received any significant screen-time. That will surely change in the upcoming episodes, but as of Episode 4, the show lacks a good villain.
Moving on, Arondir once again had a few moments to shine where he saved Theo and engaged in some visually pleasing action. The way he caught an arrow mid air and fired it back in slow-mow reminded us of how skillful and powerful elves truly are. Though he is no Legolas, Arondir is proving to be a really powerful elf who’ll surely have a lot more moments to shine in the series. The Theo storyline is still somewhat a mystery to the viewers and so is the Stranger storyline. Theo ended up narrowly escaping the orcs many times throughout the episode and at the very end we got a hint at the origins of the sword. So, I’d say that it was time well spent, however, Theo ends up being a largely unimpressive character so far.
As for The Stranger-Nori narrative, it has been the weakest so far and was missing entirely from this episode. But we did learn, during one of the conversations between characters, that the arrival of the meteor (which carried The Stranger) is prophesized to begin the rise of Sauron. Talking about prophecy, we got to see Palantir (fortune telling crystal ball) which would later fall in the hands of Sauroman during the events of LOTR. As of now, it resides with Miriel and has already prophesized the end of Numenor to Miriel as well as Galadriel. So everything seems to be falling in place now and we are all really excited for the following episodes.
Final Verdict – Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Episode 4 manages to revive the hopes and dreams of the fans. The show is getting better with each passing episode and if this rise continues, it will surely end up satisfying the fans and critics alike. Even after being a slow burn, it has managed to establish world ending stakes, likeable characters, and, do I really need to rant about how epic an audio-visual experience it is again?
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