The Rings of Power: S1, E1 A Shadow of the Past Review

For the next number of weeks, we’ll be covering the first and second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. When Season 1 aired in 2022, I watched weekly until falling off on Episode 5 Partings. There was never a particular reason for this, I had simply forgotten about The Rings of Power as House of the Dragon had captured my interest. Now that I have no excuse, and seeing as Season 2 is currently airing, now is a good opportunity to explore Amazon’s take on The Lord of the Rings. Starting with A Shadow of the Past.

The Rings of Power: A Shadow of the Past begins with an opening narration from Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) as she details why the Elves left Valinor for Middle-Earth and how her search for Sauron began. Throughout her introduction in Episode 1, we follow Galadriel from Sauron’s abandoned fortress, her reunion with Elrond (Robert Aramayo) in the Elven capital of Lindon, and a ship back to the Undying Lands. She never quite makes it to Valinor though.

Galadriel’s story in A Shadow of the Past, unfortunately, reinforced my concerns that The Rings of Power was going to be an adaptation of the appendices of The Lord of the Rings. Much of the dialogue in the first half of the episode is mixed, at best. My heart sank when Galadriel’s brother, Finrod (Will Fletcher), delivers a series of dialogues that try their best at being a moralizing piece of advice to his younger sister. Similar in tone to the way Gandalf would answer the Hobbits when they would ask him heavy questions. Unfortunately, it ends up coming a bit short by being overly long and a bit contrived.

When Galadriel is reunited with Elrond does the writing begin to step up. In The Lord of the Rings, Elves are depicted as mysterious and reserved with little to no emotion on display. The Elves of the Second Age of Middle-Earth are nothing like this. Watching these actors play off one another, while seeing much ethos from Galadriel, is a delight. Furthermore, Elrond’s occupation as a scribe for High King Gil-galad and being an Elf born in Middle-Earth, rather than arriving from Valinor, is communicated through character interaction over these facts being directly spoken out loud.

In the Rhovanion, we’re introduced to a young Harfoot by the name of Nori Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh). We follow a day in the life of Nori as she interacts with other Harfoots in the community, does chores, and finds time to break the rules while doing so. Ultimately, Nori ends up discovering a strange man who fell from the sky before the episode cuts to credits. Her story serves as the final cliffhanger for Episode 1.

The Harfoots are intended to be the Hobbit’s ancestor, a “proto-Hobbit” if you will. At every turn A Shadow of the Past does its best at evoking a sense of nostalgia for these characters. Stop me if you’ve heard this before. A community of Halflings are introduced through a whimsical tune as we follow them through their everyday life. However, one Halfling stands out among the rest with ambitions that grow beyond their daily survival.

The final point of view comes from Arondir (Ismael Cruz Cordova) in the Southlands. Elves are occupying the Southlands to keep a watchful eye over the humans who descended from the allies of Morgoth. At least they had been until High King Gil-galad declared their war to be over. As Arondir travels to tell a human he has grown close with, Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi), that he will be departing the Southlands, signs of darkness begin to emerge. Arondir and Bronwyn investigate this further only to discover a town engulfed in flames. 

Arondir’s introduction might be the highlight of Episode 1. At one point, our stoic Elf mentions that he has been stationed at this particular watchtower for 70 years. Whether or not this watchtower has been in use for over 70 years is irrelevant, that is still multiple human generations. Generations that have had to get used to the Elves that occupy their lands out of distrust for the Humans. Distrust that absolutely goes both ways between the Elves and Humans.
The Rings of Power: A Shadow of the Past, ultimately feels at odds with itself after Episode 1. While it’s cinematic with vistas and costuming only rivaled by the silver screen, the story telling moves at a crawl with conflicting writing for part of the episode. While Amazon is seeking a new venture that looks beyond the written material of The Lord of the Rings, they also can’t help themselves by borrowing the imagery of Peter Jackson’s films, attempting to create dialogue that J.R.R. Tolkien wrote, and included a Hobbit-like creature that clearly has the adventurous spirit of a Bilbo or Frodo Baggins.