In defiance of death, The Rings Of Power brings hell to Middle-earth

The first five episodes of Lord Of The Rings promised an optimistic delve into myth-making. Co-showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay led viewers through a beautifully produced pastiche of Tolkien’s legendarium that emphasized swashbuckling derring-do, grand proclamations, and mysterious prophecies. Some characters we knew, others were new. Halbrand and Arondir borrowed qualities of Aragorn; Nori and Poppy took from Bilbo and Sam Gamgee. The show has its mysteries, but as viewers debated which character was Sauron, an unseen fire burned. Episode six, “Udûn,” unleashes the first and sends viewers to hell. “Udûn,” or “hell” in Sindarin Elvish, is an hour of surprises, hope, and ultimately bad vibes.

The rug pulls begin almost immediately. “New life. In defiance of death,” says Adar as he plants some seeds before turning to his Orc army and championing their liberation. As promised last week, Adar’s Orc army besieges Ostirith only to discover the place empty. One remains: Arondir, picked out of hiding by Adar due to his distinct Elven odor. With a few well-shot arrows, Arondir brings the tower down on top of the Orc army, buying the rest of the Southlanders time to set their next trap.

They only need a few hours because the Númenóreans are heading for Middle-earth. As Isildur anxiously awaits his first sight of land, he briefly chats with Galadriel. It’s more table setting until Elendil enters when Galadriel asks Elendil about Isildur’s mother. “It is strange. For most of my life, I looked east to see the sunrise over the sea and west to see it set over the land. We’re sailing into the dawn, and it feels like the coming of night,” Elendil tells Galadriel. “She drowned.” All the poetry in the world cannot replace his loss. “She drowned” is a shot to the gut, alluding to the reality check to come.

When the rest of Adar’s army besieges the village, the Southlanders are ready, trapping the Orcs behind a ring of fire, with a fleet of archers on rooftops to finish the job. These battle scenes are a total blast of Orc bodies exploding into goopy messes with ease as their squishy innards echo on the soundtrack. It’s one of the places where Peter Jackson’s influence feels strongest, but episode director Charlotte Brändström uses the whole warg.

For his part, Arondir takes on the biggest Orc they’ve got, downing a mouthful of black Orc blood for his troubles. After his fight, he surveys the dead in the city center, but only a few bleed black—Arondir notices that the sliced necks drip the red blood of Man. These were the villagers that Adar took in last week, the friends and neighbors of the Southlanders, leaving the victors in abject horror. If only that were the end of it. As the final Orc dies, enemy arrows fling into the village, forcing the crowd into a nearby inn. The Númenóreans are coming but not fast enough, and the spindly strings of Bear McCreary’s score signal an Orc invasion straight out of Night Of The Living Dead.

Things take a turn for our heroes, particularly Bronwyn, who, mere hours after getting a nice little kiss from Arondir, takes an Orc arrow in the shoulder. Bronwyn’s been instrumental in rallying the troops, so it would make sense to pull a Ned Stark and give Theo and Arondir something to avenge. Thankfully, we were spared Bronwyn’s fridging. But, unfortunately, there would be plenty more to avenge. Somehow, Adar returned, and he’d like to speak to the manager of the Southlands about the hilt. After showing off how little his Orcs care about human life in a brutal display, Theo offers it to Adar in exchange for his mother’s life. Just then, eucatastrophe.

Coined by Tolkien in his seminal “On Fairy-Stories” essay, eucatastrophe is crucial to the author’s views on fantasy and fairy stories. Eucatastrophe is the happily ever after, the moment when everything turns on a dime and the heroes win the day. Prince Charming’s waking of sleeping beauty, Christ emerging from the cave, or Aragorn arriving with the army of the dead, these surprise, happy endings elevate joy into enchantment. Likewise, the Númenórean earth-quaking arrival in the Southland as Adar gets the hilt is a eucatastrophe.

And the show starts barreling toward the ending we expected. The Númenóreans show up and save the Southlanders. Galadriel does some cool Elf trick shots from her horse, and we learn that she’ll be assembling a company to hunt Sauron. The road goes ever on and on, and all that.

Yet something doesn’t feel right about all this. It’s all been a little too easy. In fact, this whole season’s been going down a little easy. Galadriel had some early setbacks but was successful, thus far, in bringing the South and the West together against Sauron. Arondir and Bronwyn saved the village and even got to kiss. Númenor won so that Queen Regent Míriel could return as a war hero. The Lord Of The Rings television show that for so long felt too epic and grand to produce managed to wrap up its eight-episode season in six installments, on time and under its massive budget. If only the credits rolled 10 minutes early.

With Adar captured, Galadriel figures she can finally nail Sauron. However, “Udûn” has one more ace up its sleeve. Adar isn’t just a fallen Elf but one of the original Orcs known as Uruk, who were early Elves enslaved and tortured by Morgoth in the First Age. Over the generations, they devolved into Orcs, who, as Tolkien writes in The Silmarillion, “loathed the Master whom they served in fear, the maker only of their misery.” This sounds like Adar, who boils with rage so intense he sounds like Pinhead. His intentions aren’t to return the Orcs to Sauron and have his people enslaved once again, but rather to give them the dignity of other living beings.

Orcs have long been a major subject of criticism against Tolkien. Given that most adaptations and artwork based on the author’s work featured white Elves, white Hobbits, white Men, and white Dwarves, many saw the Orcs as negative representations of people of color, immigration, and race mixing, among other critiques. Their lack of dimensionality has supported this subtext because there are no Orcs to offer the contrary. Adar finally complicates the Orcs, giving them something resembling autonomy, which is an exciting prospect. Thus far, the show has deferred chiefly to Tolkien. Adar’s motives, however, feel like a critique of the author, allowing us to reconsider the Orc murder mayhem from earlier. The show goes a step further, though. Perhaps, Adar isn’t the only Elf corrupted by darkness. Galadriel’s speech about eradicating the Orcs makes Adar more sympathetic and spotlights the fascism of the Elves, a season-long thematic concern elevated to the center of the conflict.

As Arondir and Theo make peace with the end of the battle, Theo shares his feelings of loss over giving up the hilt. Like other dark jewelry, this hilt holds power over those who possess it. Yet, when Theo has it, something feels off. He unwraps the blanket to discover it’s gone. As the Numenór and the Southlands clank glasses and turn the battlefield into a Guinness commercial, Waldreg was sticking Sauron’s sword in the stone, breaking the dams and sending water throughout the rivers and underground tunnels.

Now, for the final turn. When the rivers started flowing, it’s fair to assume that the Great Wave imagined by Míriel was coming to pass. But the ancient waters flow beneath the earth, causing an ominous volcano to erupt and enveloping the Southlands in a cloud of ash and fire to envelope the countryside. Elves and Adar have the same pre-war ritual: Burying seeds. “New life in defiance of death.” But nothing grows in hell. There will be no new life. Udûn is here, and we have no idea what to do next.

Stray observations:

• Fun fact: In addition to “hell,” Udûn is also the ancient name of Mordor. If there were any questions about what this Southland is destined to become
• Adar is such a compelling villain, and Joseph Mawle sold these subtle machinations by layering him with contradictions. He’s cold but vulnerable, despondent but idealistic. It’s a fascinating performance that keeps delivering.
• Halbrand took one hell of a pause when Adar asked who he was.
• We’ve made a lot of predictions, all of which have been wrong. This show seems committed to zigging when we expect a zag, and it’s a total relief. Who wants a TV show where they can guess everything that’s going to happen?
• Galadriel’s horse-girl powers turned up in this episode. This Elf is all over the saddle. I will spend the next week impersonating Arondir’s pronunciation of her name.
• There is no better addition to any scene than a last surviving Orc delivering a crucial bit of information before they die.