'Lord of the Rings' series 'The Rings of Power' is beautiful but empty in Season 2
There's a hole in my heart where love for "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" should be.
Season 1 of the outrageously expensive Amazon Prime series had a lot going for it. The sets, the costumes and the effects are gorgeous. You can tell and respect how much work it took to bring this series to life.
The story also had a lot of opportunity to go in almost any direction, considering it's using only a handful of writings of J.R.R. Tolkien from the "Lord of the Rings" appendices to tell a story about the Second Age of Middle-earth, which for the uninitiated is the middle part of the story, after the creation myth and before "LOTR" proper. It's all about the forging of those rings, the rise of ultimate baddie Sauron and getting all the chess pieces on the board that ultimately set up Frodo's journey to destroy the ring of power in the main trilogy.
The first season obviously required a lot of setup, and I gave creators J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay a lot of leeway to get their footing and create a series that's distinct from the Peter Jackson films that have so permeated popular culture. And by the time the season ended with a big reveal that Sauron (Charlie Vickers) had been hiding in plain sight all along, I was excited to see what they would do with a second season.
Unfortunately, all that promise has been utterly wasted on the confusing, directionless and emotionally bankrupt second season of "Rings of Power" (streaming Thursdays, ★½ out of four). If Season 1 was a leisurely stroll through Middle-earth, Season 2 gallops away, leaving many of the important details, character developments and stakes behind.
Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
If you can possibly remember what happened in the first season − and I was still vaguely confused even after watching a recap video, which is a mark against the series because homework should not be required − you'll know things are looking grim in Middle-earth. Sauron tricked the elves, including Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) and Elrond (Robert Aramayo), into crafting three rings of power to save their crippled realm of Lindon. The utopian kingdom of men Númenor has lost its king and a battle in Middle-earth. A couple of Hobbit-like Harfoots are accompanying a mysterious wizard known as "The Stranger" (Daniel Weyman) on a perilous journey. And the dwarf underground realm of Khazad-dûm is collapsing, so it might need some powerful rings, too.
It's all a lot to remember, and the new episodes are far more interested in the big-picture plot twists and mythology than any of the characters. There are no magnetic heroes to ground the story from its many locations. The producers expect to scare us with monsters and villains but give us no one to love. Much hangs on the shoulders of the young cast, especially Aramayo and Clark, but mostly they lack the talent or depth to add gravitas to the story.
The series cycles through the storylines in perfunctory fashion. The relationships often don't make sense, and it's hard to keep track of who is related to whom, let alone their names and motivations. And that's a problem, because you can have the most beautiful sets and the most daring plot of any TV show around, but the essence of story is characters. Audiences are drawn to people, even if they're dressed up as dwarves or Harfoots. When dwarf prince Durin IV (Owain Arthur) fights with his father, Durin III (Peter Mullan), it's hard to care, even if you can remember what they were fighting about in Season 1 (the writers feel no need to remind the audience).
It's heartbreaking to see a story with so much potential, so much work behind it, and with such beloved source material crumble the way "Rings of Power" has. Certainly, Hollywood has proved that no production is too big to fail, no matter how much money is thrown at it.
I wouldn't mind using a ring of power myself to make some edits to this version of Middle-earth.