Rings of Power “Where Is He?” Gives Everyone What They Want. Mostly.
Obsessions or service is a choice we must make
The Rings of Power episode 6 “Where Is He?”
The Rings of Power season two has been an improvement over season one and even within this season, the episodes have begun to ramp up. “Where Is He?” continues the streak with another gorgeous episode with deep and moving character moments interspersed with dynamic action and the promise of even more.
This episode allows characters to explore their true desire. Some desires are for the good of others, some are quietly obviously selfish, but others are more complicated, torn between two different good choices that lie on opposing paths.
A few scenes failed to capture the needed grandeur, but the episode as a whole wasn’t weighed down. The show has positioned itself for a dramatic close over the final two episodes that are bound to leave audiences anxious for season three.
Spoilers for The Rings of Power episode 6 “Where Is He?”
I’m traveling for the weekend to visit family, so I was only able to watch this episode once. I apologize for missing anything major or any more typos than normal.
For those familiar with The Lord of the Rings, we recognize Sauron as the all-seeing evil eye. We hear the echoes of that when Adar tells Galadriel, “His eye bores a hole and the rest of him slithers in.” But Sauron as Annatar is less well-known, but perhaps more insidious, as we see in “Where Is He?”
Adar goes on to explain, “For a while, he makes you believe that this power has become yours. Irresistible power that makes every desire’s fulfillment seem inevitable.” Before Sauron seeks to rule Middle-earth through force and terror, Annatar, the lord of gifts, seeks to win the world through cunning and deception.
Think through each of the main characters in this episode, their desires and temptations.
Stranger
Tom Bombadil explicitly tells the Stranger he must choose what he wants most. “There are times when one path becomes two, and you must choose. Turn away now, and you can never return to this path.”
While we’re meant to believe the Stranger is being forced to either find his destiny or help his friend, I don’t think that’s his choice. He must decide whether he wants to seek power or seek to help others.
Tom leads him to the place where the Dark Wizard found his staff and tells him, “You’ll find your true staff only when the vision of your heart is single to the service of the Secret Fire.”
The Dark Wizard failed by choosing a staff and power. The Stranger is failing in his trials because his mind is still set on mastery. He wants power to control, but he needs to choose service, which would lead him to save Nori. Only then will he be truly ready for power and wielding his staff.
Nori
She believed she wanted adventure, but now she knows she wants a home, like what the Stoors have. Sometimes, we have to stand and fight for our home. We can’t keep running. The Rhûn storylines with both Nori and the Stranger have a Moses feel to them. Nori is the reluctant leader who will eventually lead her people out of the wilderness to the promised land.
Prince Durin
The prince is torn between his king and his father. The king has become greedy and self-obsessed, endangering everyone in Khazad-dûm. But he’s still Durin’s father. Disa wants the prince to do more in opposition to the king. “I can’t do it, Disa,” he says through tears (both Durin’s and mine). “I look at him, and in his eyes, I still see my father. Lost and far away, yes, but he’s still in there.” Disa convinces him that to save his father, he has to rebel against his king.
King Durin
Thanks to the ring he refuses to take off, the king has become obsessed with hoarding wealth. Seeing the mounds of gold in the dwarf kingdom can’t help but bring to mind the dragon Smaug sitting on stacks of coins and treasure in the dwarf’s old home in the Lonely Mountain from The Hobbit. That never ends well.
He can refuse Annatar, but not for any good reason. As Tolkien writes about the dwarves, they cannot be controlled by Sauron through the rings but become greedier. Durin doesn’t need more gold, but he wants it.
Sauron is content with the dwarves’ refusal because he always has a plan B, and this time the B stands for Balrog. While Durin believes they will be able to control the rest of Middle-earth with their mithril, Sauron knows their desire for more wealth will awaken a problem within their home.
Elendil
Similar to Prince Durin, Elendil must decide the best way to serve those he loves. Both his daughter and the queen he loves tell him to bow to Pharazôn to avoid being executed. Míriel says, “If Númenor is to endure, it needs men like you. Men who will champion all that is precious. Men of faith.” He replies, “Faith is not faith if it is not lived.” He would “cease to be the man you wish to save” if he bowed. He chooses to be judged by the Valar and thrown to the sea monster.
But before he can be tossed into the sea, Míriel takes his place. She faces the sea monster, who pulls a Jonah and the whale and spits her back on dry land. This complicates the plans of Pharazôn, who later looks into Palantir, sees Halbrand, and has the same look on his face as I do when I see Kemen on the screen.
Celebrimbor
Unfortunately, deception has taken hold of him. From the beginning, he has been driven by ego and Sauron has appealed to his quest for validation every step of the way. He can’t remember names or where he placed his tools. Sauron uses the confusion he has woven to cease more power in Eregion.
Even when Celebrimbor becomes suspicious, Annatar causes him to go deeper into his mind, constructing a false reality that reassures him. There’s a body with a carved message delivered to his town, which shortly enters mass chaos, and he’s drawing in his sketchbook and obsessed with making rings that he swore he would never make just a few episodes ago.
Adar
“The deceiver believes he is still beyond my grasp,” he tells Galadriel, but he forgets his own words. Sauron is in his head just as much as he’s in anyone else’s. The army marching on Eregion is all part of Sauron’s plan. Adar cannot get what he wants by following Sauron’s path of war and destruction, even some of his orcs see that now. For all the complaints about humanizing the orcs, their agency reveals the depths of Adar’s obsession and just how much Sauron still holds sway over his mind.
The links between Adar and Galadriel were overwhelming in this episode. In the opening scene, orcs are leaving Adar’s army because they believe in chasing Sauron, he’s chasing a ghost. Reminding us of Galadriel’s soldiers refusing to follow her continued quest for Sauron in the first episode.
We also have the callback to the capture and interrogation scene from “Udûn,” episode 6 last season, but so much of it was an inversion. Last time, Galadriel chained Adar to the floor in a sparse barn. This time, however, she is chained to a chair seated in front of a feast. When she had him in chains, Galadriel threatened Adar with violence to get him to talk. He tricked her into revealing the information he wanted. But just like last time, we get stark Dutch angles that highlight the tension and cause us to feel unease with the characters’ perspective.
Galadriel
Forced to face and confess her failures with Halbrand, Galadriel may find mental freedom even as she remains imprisoned among Adar’s army. Her obsession with destroying Sauron leads her to reveal too much information to Adar. Instead of partnering with her, he places her back in chains. But she finally sees the plan; Adar has brought Sauron the army he wants.
What does she really want? She thought she wanted an army. Now Elrond leads one and is headed her way. But is that her primary desire now. Is she willing to do anything and everything to destroy Sauron as she told Elrond or does she realize the ends justify the means is the very path Sauron wants her to walk?
In the last two episodes, several characters will be forced to choose their true desire. Adar may remain obsessed with destroying Sauron and lose his children as a result. Galadriel may finally lay down her obsession and instead save Elrond. The Stranger will go save Nori and realize his true power and destiny is found in saving and serving others.
Random thoughts
Some of the scenes that fell flat for me where Annatar’s speech to the people of Eregion and the Númenor ocean trial. Eregion felt small there, like it was shot on a sound stage with only a handful of actors. And while the Númenor scene was a gorgeous location, it felt like there should be more people there to witness this.
We were given Arondir running just to remind us that he’s on his way to the battle. In some dramatic moment, he’s going to twirl onto the screen to make the save.
While we were reminded of him, we’ve conveniently ignored the troll. He’s going to show up and wreck some stuff in Eregion.
Did you see how Galadriel flinched when Adar brought out Morgoth’s crown?
The Stoors are about to turn their village into the Home Alone house to try to stop the trackers, aren’t they?
Is that bottle of the “purest” mithril Annatar gives Celebrimbor even mithril? Maybe Sauron believes using lesser materials will make the rings and their wearers even more susceptible to his control.
With Míriel emerging from her test as the “Queen of the Sea,” I wonder if Pharazôn will now force her to marry him to maintain his possession of the throne.
There were a lot of allusions to other pieces of Middle-earth lore and the Peter Jackson trilogy, some more overt than others.
Tom rephrases Gandalf’s future line: “Many that die deserve life. Some that live deserve death. Who are you to give it to them?”
Adar’s table filled with fruit on the eve of war brought to mind Denethor and his tomatoes from The Return of the King.
And of course, Annatar twice used the word “precious” with obvious emphasis. I’m not totally sure how I feel about these when they’re so overt. I’d prefer my Easter Eggs be hidden just a little bit.
In addition to the show calling back to other Middle-earth stories and adaptations, the second season also allows the show to reference itself. The overhead shot of the Númenor pool resembled the shot of the Stranger’s crater and the fireballs flying toward Eregion echoed the fireballs flying from Mount Doom to the Southlanders’ village.
During the first season of The Rings of Power, we tracked who Sauron would be. He has been revealed, but we have a couple of other questions that allow us to play the guessing game this season. We still don’t know who the Stranger is or which nine from the race of men will become Ringwraiths.
Who is the Stranger?
Gandalf — I didn’t want him to be Gandalf, but I think it has to be at this point. He mistakenly wants to master the secret fire, but Tom Bombadil is trying to teach him to become a servant to it (as Gandalf will famously refer to himself when facing the Balrog in The Fellowship of the Ring).
Blue Wizard — Regardless of whether his name is Gandalf, this story remains an adaptation of the Blue Wizards story.
Radagast — Nope.
Waldreg the White — One can hope.
Naming the Nazgûl
Kemen — I have to put him back at the top of the list, even though my hatred still burns bright. His dad insulting him at the throne and then leaving him behind for the ceremony at the sea, leads me to think he’s going to want to do something desperate to earn his father’s approval. Perhaps, accept a ring of power?
Theo — Unfortunately, this still feels all but assured … unless he becomes the King of the Oathbreakers, cursed by Isildur and called by Aragorn.
Theo’s dad — Mystery characters usually end up as something significant later on. Are father-son matching rings in the future?
Pharazôn — He really doesn’t like elves, does he?
Eärien — Further entrenching herself with the evil Númenoreans could make her Ringwraith status more likely, but I feel like her dad all but guaranteed her future fate with his line about it being a “long way to the bottom.”
Brânk — He already has the creepy skull mask, why not just go full monster?
Belzagar — I could see him quickly shift his “Pha-Ra-Zôn! Pha-Ra-Zôn!” chant to “Ann-A-Tar! Ann-A-Tar!”
Estrid — She’s already taken the mark and has skill in deception.
Estrid’s fiancé — We don’t like Hagen. He has a name so he can become a named (not nameless) evil.