In Review: THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER (S1 – EP5) Partings

Synopsis: In Partings, Nori questions her instincts; Elrond struggles to stay true to his oath; Halbrand weighs his destiny; The Southlanders brace for attack.

The Story

Picking up the story from last week. The Kingdom of Numenor prepares an army to go to Middle Earth in support of King Halbrand and the humans in the Southlands. To that end, Captain Elendil runs some training drills for his young soldiers and allows Galadriel to give them a lesson in sword combat and the importance of balance. Meanwhile in the Southland Bronwyn rallies for support from the tribe and gets about half to stand and fight alongside her. The other half follows Waldreg who looks to join Adar and his army of orcs. 

Having accepted a dinner meeting with the High King of the Elves. Elrond learns about a darkness that threatens to wipe out his kind if they cannot get a certain resource from the Dwarfs. However, to obtain it in the way that the elves want. He’d have to break his word of honor to Durin, which is something he cannot do.

Elsewhere, The Brandyfoots continue their perilous journey as the hobbits migrate with the mysterious stranger. However certain events lead to Nori questioning if her instincts are right about the mysterious man who can conjure magic.

The Acting

Nazanin Boniadi gets her moment to shine as Bronwyn addresses the crowd as the leader that circumstances are making her into. The speech she gives was nicely done. As was the dispute between her and Waldreg who seeks to surrender and takes half the tribe with him. Also good in this episode was Robert Aramayo as Elrond. The discussion he has with the High King added both a nice bit of backstory and foreshadowing to the story. 

And last but not least. I really enjoyed Morfydd Clark’s action scene where Galadriel teaches Elendil’s young soldiers a thing or two about sword fighting.

Overall

This was a really strong episode, which does a lot of work to set things up for what looks like it could be a humdinger of a battle as Galadriel and Halbrand seek to take the Southlands back from Adar and his Orks.