The culling continues. After first dispatching Eärien, the non-canonical daughter of Elendil and sister of future kings Isildur and Anárion whose best material by far was her last, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power makes similarly short work now of Arondir, the all-new wood-elf it contributed to the mythos. It also kills Marnûkh, the rogue orc whose machinations dominate this opening salvo of four episodes, effectively a four-part season premiere. 

They’re hardly the first TRoP originals to go. Bronwyn, the human healer played by Nazanin Boniadi, left between Seasons 1 and 2, and her character was killed off offscreen. This no doubt hamstrung many plans for both her love interest Arondir and her son Theo, giving the two characters a kind of aimless feeling on screen. The fact that all they’re ever given to do is grumble or glower doesn’t help.

It’s tough to say Arondir will be missed, but it’s still sad to see his stricken face as he realizes he’s dying at the hands of his own adoptive son, Theo, who also strikes Marnûkh. All this to rescue an elf-smith whom they find lying in her cell, a weeks-old corpse. Woof.

Meanwhile, Adar, the first orc and Marnûkh’s hero and inspiration, was recast when his initial actor left, unlike Bronwyn, but still met his maker last season. The earth-children proto-hobbits who accompanied Gandalf appear to have wandered away from the storyline. Other than Theo, the human teenager turned future Ringwraith, and Kemen, the Númenorean prince who I assume will also be a future Ringwraith, there aren’t many TRoP originals left standing, at least not outside the walls of Khazad-dûm.

Are you gonna miss many of them? Maybe they were necessary to get the show to the place it’s at now, but particularly during the endless wheel-spinning of the first season few of these characters did much to endear themselves to me as a viewer. Now that the show has the confidence to really play with its most famous characters, I’m not sure the junior varsity squad is needed.

There are still plenty of new characters down in the Dwarf realm of Khazad-dûm, and there’s a romance angle down there that ties the action to the battle in Gundabad up north. In the same episode in which Galadriel reunites with her long-lost, presumed-dead husband Celeborn (not a new character, but he’s got an actual personality on the show, so he might as well be one), Queen Disa comes clean to King Durin IV about her one-night stand with his brother Thrain. (She and Durin were on a break!)

Disa does this both to get it off her chest and because she doesn’t want Thrain bringing it up and getting into Durin’s head during their trial by combat for the throne of Khazad-dûm — more on that in a moment — but it’s strange, watching an adult couple make a responsible decision about a past romantic entanglement, only they happen to be dwarves with Scottish accents.

At any rate, yes, Thrain has finally made his intentions clear. Siding with the restive Dwarf-lords who want the rings of power they were promised so that they can fight off the forces of Mordor massing near their own borders — that using a weapon designed by Sauron against Sauron might not work the way they think it will never seems to occur to anyone — Thrain issues a challenge for the crown. His rationale is that since their father King Durin III was wearing a ring when he made Durin IV his heir, he wasn’t in his right mind. Again, this is a point at which I’d question the wisdom of seizing and using said ring, but what do I know?

Unfortunately, Thrain wins their fight, and we have Durin’s dumbass son Gamli (Lee Braithwaite) to thank for that. He tells his dad he saw Mom and Uncle Thrain together, not bothering to note he means talking, not making out. Durin goes ballistic, letting his rage cloud his judgment. While Thrain doesn’t kill Durin while he has the chance, he does knock him out cold instead, claiming kingship of the mountain…and of the rings, if he can find where Durin put them.

In Númenor, a very fast-acting Anárion somehow gets ahold of a bunch of official uniforms and hijacks the prison wagon transporting his father Elendil. The Faithful forces capture Kemen, King Ar-Pharazôn’s awful son, in the process. Maybe this is good for Gil-galad and Elrond’s trip to the island nation to ask for aid; that’s one very anti-Elf voice sidelined. 

I don’t think this is the best work we’ve seen from this season’s first four installments, but it has its moments. The albinism of the winged beast Sauron rides is a terrific touch. In a completely different way, so was Arondir’s puzzled “Who?” when Celeborn introduces himself. (You’re not alone, buddy.) The still-corporeal Nazgagôl are fun presences in any action-horror sequence, the orc designs are strong, and the ruined, snow-blanked fortress of Gundabad is more Elden Ring than Lord of the Rings, which I mean as a compliment. Not everything works, but that’s fine. The Rings of Power, like Sauron, is still experimenting to find the exact right magic spell to use.

Sean T. Collins (@seantcollins.com on Bluesky and theseantcollins on Patreon) has written about television for The New York Times, Vulture, Rolling Stone, and elsewhere. He is the author of Pain Don’t Hurt: Meditations on Road House. He lives with his family on Long Island.