There’s a second one.
01:46 Second episode gets a credit sequence. Looks like dirt forming Tolkieny symbols and images. A good metaphor for the series so far.

02:48 JD Payne and Patrick McKay are the new DB Weiss and Dan Benioff. Or Rage Judkins. Perhaps their version of D&D can be PP?

02:50 Why does the name Gennifer Hutchison look familiar? Okay, she was a “Producer” on The Strain and Better Call Saul and was an assistant to producers or production staff of things ranging from Grey’s Anatomy to Mad Men and Breaking Bad. Let’s see how she does without a Vince Gilligan or Benico Del Toro vetoing her work…

03:12 Galadriel (who, as far we know, has not yet met the person who gave her that name) might now be seeing some flaw in her plan to jump off her boat right as it reaches the point beyond which ships that go back to Middle Earth are not permitted to sail.

This might be a way to introduce Numenor, since they are on the way back.

04:41 So we’re back with Nori, who has been knocked into the space-man crater by her idiot friend Poppy, and discovers the fires in the crater are not hot. Please, please, please, don’t let this be an Istari. We know how they got to Middle Earth, it was at the Grey Havens, and it was after Sauron was defeated by Isildur!

06:00 Perhaps you can carry this giant in one of those carts you guys keep referencing but have not otherwise given indication of possessing.

08:17 Two idiot Harfoots forgetting how wheelbarrows work does not exactly blend with the tone of what this work should be.

10:29 It suddenly occurs to me that the foci of this show so far are a rebelliously defiant Galadriel, a rebelliously defiant Nori and an original Elf patrolling a human community where all the men are creepy and he has a strong connection with a woman who is Not Like the Others. Are the writers even trying?

11:46 At some point I am going to remember original Elf soldier’s name. It would help if Healer Woman said it more often.

12:04 Eregion. Canonically close to the Dwarves of Moria, where I am sure we will get our glimpse of the rebelliously defiant black Dwarf lady in all the ads.

12:26 The Hammer of Feanor, which he used to create the Silmarils (I am not going to ask) is not responsible for so much beauty and so much pain. The Silmarils did not cause pain, people doing bad things caused it. Why is Elrond saying this stuff with a smile on his face, like its academic data to him, rather than a chain of events that cost him his parents?

12:29 And Celebrimbor gives a non-answer about creation requiring sacrifice. What has the dichotomy of a tool being used to create both beauty and pain to do with the idea that creation requires sacrifice? That had nothing to do with the story of the Silmarils. There was no sacrifice involved whatsoever, aside from the willingness of Feanor to sacrifice anything to get them back. And Celebrimbor is estranged from his family, presumably over the crimes of his father, uncles and grandfather. Shouldn’t he be saying something a little more emphatic, rather than this bland platitude that could be viewed as a defense of Feanor?

The Silmarils should be such a fraught topic for Elrond and Celebrimbor, since the latter’s father died slaying the former’s grandparents to seize one.

13:00 Okay, Celebrombor says “they say” so he can blather whatever he wants and it can contradict the books, because he’s only repeating a rumor. In this case, that Morgoth’s tear did something to the Silmarils that made him reflect his own evil, rather than Varda hallowing them so that evil things could not bear the touch of them.

13:11 And Celebrimbor is envious of Feanor’s achievement, instead of all the evil he did. Because that’s in character.

14:07 Elven industry. This is not what they do! They make stuff personally. You don’t make great objects of Power because you have super awesome tech! It’s the product of your own craft and will and creative powers. And Elrond is necessary for bureaucratic and logistic support. This is all missing the point so badly.

14:27 Eregion was built where it was for its proximity to Khazad-Dum, but Elrond is the one who has to suggest to Celebrimbor working with the Dwarves. Meanwhile, the Sons of Feanor, especially Celebrimbor’s father, have been working and trading with Dwarves since the First Age. He lived in Nargothrond, which was the realm of Finrod, who was a friend of the Dwarves. He should not have needed suggestions!

And when Elrond suggests “going outside our race” for help, Celebrimbor asks “How far?” like there are degrees. Are Dwarves further outside the Elven race than Men? Or are Men further outside, and beyond the boundaries Celebrimbor is willing to push?

15:05 How does an immortal Elf know the degree of respect one uses in caring for an aged parent? Elves don’t do that. Why is it his go-to metaphor?

15:30 You know Elrond is only saying all this to set up a joke based on a much less welcome reception.

19:46 From a world-building standpoint what is the point of having a sacred ritual test of endurance in order to test an outsider’s worthiness to receive a boon at risk of banishment? Also, what does he stand to lose, when he was not even allowed in the front door until he invoked the rite? His defeat only restores the status quo.

21:00 What’s Mr. “Please Don’t Be a Wizard” up to?

22:17 The gestures, logically, should not mean any more to him than the words, if he does not speak your language.

26:31 If they have carts, he should be able to migrate.

30:01 Once again, an Elf is no better than a human at picking up an incoming danger.

31:35 Are there even sea monsters in Arda? The Seas are the domain of Ulmo and sea creatures that of Uinen, both of whom love the Children of Iluvatar, and anyway monsters were canonically all created by Morgoth binding corrupted spirits to beasts, while Ulmo’s protection was so strong as to preserve the coastal regions from Morgoth’s forces. No way, no how they let him get his hands on any fish or whales to pervert.

35:17 Durin claims that he’s lived an entire life in the 20-year Elven eye-blink he’s been estranged from Elrond. A Dwarf does not even reach adulthood until 30. Fili and Kili were characterized as young adult Dwarves in The Hobbit and they were in their 80s. And this is in the 3rd Age, when their lifespans have become diminished. At the height of the reigns of the Kings of Khazad Dum, their lifespans should be fairly long, since Kings tend to live longer than others and their kindred were the longest lived of the Dwarves. For the record, it sounds like Sigin-Tarag is the Rite Elrond invoked to get in the door, which means Long Beard in Dwarf. So they know the right words, but ignore details to invent a reason why Durin is mad at Elrond. Which was not necessary, since there is no mention of any such estrangement (or relationship) in the books.

37:45 I’m going to count Durin’s wife as not a defiantly rebellious cliché. Aside from the apparently unavoidable tendency to use Dwarves as slap-stick comic relief, this bit with his family has not been so bad.

39:29 But of course, the wife is the reasonable one.

43:50 This guy reads Galadriel really well.

45:49 There is a rather perverse correlation of attractiveness to good judgement and righteousness among this human community.

53:50 Not a great plan, Galadriel.

55:00 I wonder what narrative purpose that scene served besides spectacle.

1:00:00 So I guess the mystery of what the Dwarves are hiding will have to wait for another episode.

1:01:52 Numenor?

Not much to this one. It looks like it’s just extending plot points introduced in the first episode. Not a whole lot of lore butchery, so there is that. But these drawn out mysteries lasting several episodes longer than they need to strike me as the kind of thing that produces lots of plot holes you are supposed to lose track of in the wait between episodes. I have to say that in general the human attitude towards Elves seems projected from contemporary ideas about privilege and superiority than anything in Tolkien’s works, where humans are mostly just awestruck or at the least very impressed with Elves.

So we shall have to see.