‘The Rings of Power’ Season 3 Episodes 1-4 Review - A Surprisingly Decent Comeback

I admit I forgot that a show named The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power even existed, and I am someone who reviewed its first two seasons. It was only after I saw the trailer for Season 3 a few weeks back that I remembered all about this fantasy series produced by Amazon MGM Studios. It's doubly surprising, then, that while watching the new batch of episodes—only four of them have been released for now—some memories of the other two seasons came flooding back to me as if they had just been waiting for a trigger. Those memories also reminded me that I didn't really like the first two seasons. They left me terribly bored. And Season 3, too, initially seems to be walking in the same direction.

For starters, I am still not fully in awe of the show's scale and VFX. I still find them nothing more than pretty screensavers, but the kingdom of Númenor continues to stand as a stunning exception. Those waterfalls, that large statue, and the streets packed with activity and crowds do lend this place a credibility that I don't get from anywhere else. There are a few shots of the forest where the greenery glows warmly under the yellow rays of the sun, but they are only superficially appealing, like pretty postcard pictures.

It's good news, then, that the third season ends up doing something that the other seasons spectacularly failed at: it grabs you with the power of its writing through a few key moments that put you on the edge of your seat and elevate your heart rate. There are also some shocking deaths, with one of them—a suicide—leaving you thinking, "What the hell just happened?" because of the casualness with which it's executed. A character, without pausing for even a second, simply walks towards the terrace, climbs the ledge, and willingly falls to her death. The whole thing is almost..."robotic," and it's done with a "there is nothing else I can do" determination.

What the first four episodes really excel at is making you scream at the top of your voice, thanks to certain choices the characters make. You know how you feel like dragging the characters away from some place when they stand in one spot and get all sentimental while the villain slowly moves towards them? That's what you feel when Galadriel (Morfydd Clark), Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova), Celeborn (Jamie Campbell Bower), and an orc named Marnûkh (Adam Young) pause, look at each other, and have a heart-to-heart at Gundabad while Sauron (Charlie Vickers) is on his way to their location.

Then there are some good individual moments, such as a messenger running up and down a long, long flight of stairs to relay a message between two brothers. We also watch Sauron the Sadist poison a woman and dangle the cure in front of her husband, who can only get it after providing Sauron with the necessary information. Sauron receives the information, all right, but the cure is inside a tightly sealed container that the husband isn't able to open in time, and when the woman coughs, the poison inside her triggers, causing her to explode and killing both her and her husband. What's more, the series has a bit of fun with making you wonder whether Galadriel, by trusting an orc, is walking into a trap or whether Marnûkh is really being honest.

All in all, the first four episodes are plenty watchable, and they keep you sufficiently entertained. It isn't much, but it's also a promising sign and possibly a promise from the creators that they will do their best to keep the series from sinking into the pit of utter worthlessness. After two forgettable seasons, this seems like a pretty decent starting point. Let's see what other surprises lie ahead.

Final Score – [6.5/10]