Rings Of Power Episode 6 was the best episode so far, at least for me. Some people were complaining that Rings of Power is getting boring and this was Amazon Prime Video’s answer to them, a pretty explosive one if you ask me.
Anyways, we saw a lot of fighting in this episode, which was nice after a lot of talking. And this episode just focused on one storyline rather than showing you all the stories going on with all the characters of the show.
The main focus was Adar vs The Southland people and Neumenor coming to save them. So, Adar wanted that Black sword Hilt that Theo had, and the Southland folks didn’t want to give it to him also they didn’t want to surrender. Arondir motivated his side and made a plan to take over the number game. Also, Arondir made some progress with his relationship with Bronwyn. We also got an ending which (like I said) would call it a pretty Explosive Ending.
Rings Of Power Episode 6 Recap
Rings Of Power Episode 6 opens with Adar giving a speech to the orcs. Then he leads the orcs – and Waldreg – up to the elven tower of Ostirith, where they find it empty. After entering, Adar sees the statue depicting the sword and presumably Sauron’s helm, which prompts Waldreg to ask what happened to Sauron. And naturally, an orc interrupts before Adar can answer.
Adar says he can smell the elf – again we see his character to be an interesting blend of elf and orc, with more to come. Arondir springs into action, bringing down the entire tower while locking the orcs inside and taking out a number that was still ascending the path.
There’s not really anything to dissect here, but I’m a big fan of this sequence and it’s fun to see Arondir do awesome elven things as he kind of seems like he’s the Legolas of this series. Bronwyn and the villagers see the tower fall from ground level and begin phase 2 – preparing their village for an attack by the surviving orcs.
Numenor Reaches Southland
Next, we are at sea with the three Numenorean ships. Isildur wakes in the early morning hours, passing by Halbrand who is awake in his hammock. Isildur goes to his horse Berek and shares an apple with him before throwing it half eaten into the water – which is like super wasteful – he totally should’ve given the rest to the horse. Also – Isildur is a lefty.
Galadriel then approaches Isildur and they go on to talk about his position of stable sweep and Numenor. Isildur reveals he is trying to get away from the place Numenor has become, and questions whether the real Numenor – the one that was faithful – ever existed. Galadriel says it did exist and it exists still – if only in the heart of the lowliest stable sweep.
We see Isildur stare in amazement at the coast of Middle-earth before Elendil interrupts. And before revealing that Isildur’s mother drowned, he talks about looking east most of his life to see the sun rise over the sea, and west to see it set on land, so basically it feels backwards to him. This made me wonder how long he has lived in the East of Numenor for this to be the case – for if he lived in the West of Numenor, the sun would rise above the land of Numenor and set over the sea, as he is currently seeing in this scene.
The Southlands Folks Vs Adar
We transition to Arondir trying to destroy the hilt shard to no avail, so he goes to hide it. The villagers board and seal up all the orc tunnel exits and get their plan in place, including the tavern being where those unable to fight will hunker down. Arondir tells the villagers to do their part and he swears they will see the sunrise again – which seems like a lot to promise to untrained folks about to face off against orcs.
The speech itself is pretty boilerplate rah, rah, let’s beat the bad guys – it’s not that the dialogue is like offensively bad or anything, it’s more so just lacking any of the poetry we’ve come to expect from Tolkien’s world. Theo then goes into the shelter to protect the people who can’t fight. We see Arondir and Bronwyn talking with each other about planting Alfirin seeds. Arondir says after the battle is over, they can settle down and they have some pre-battle smoochy time.
Night falls and the orcs make their way into the town. The villagers have a nice trap setup and corner the orcs between lines of fire. The villagers hold their own pretty well while Arondir goes one-v-one against this level’s boss. We get some good-sized one shots in here, which are pretty fun – I’ll take fight scenes like this over shaky cam quick cuts any day.
Boss orc has Arondir pinned and a blade super close to his eye when Broynwyn saves the day – incidentally, I totally thought Theo was gonna be the one to save him, but it was Bronwyn instead. No smoochy this time because Arondir got gross orc blood like all over his mouth just now.
You’ve Not Won
The Southlands think they’ve won, only for Arondir to realize that many of the orcs were actually the defected Southlands dressed as orcs. Now I don’t think they’re all men by any means because on second viewing I noticed a lot of orc faces in these fights. Now my first thought when seeing this scene was that perhaps Adar truly was Sauron – and his power of creating illusions make all these men look like orcs until this moment.
It would be a really cool instance of Sauron using this power we know him to have, but it doesn’t seem like that’s what’s happening here. Incidentally, in the First Age, we see an instance where Galadriel’s brother Finrod disguises himself and his company as orcs, so powerful elves are mentioned a couple of times for doing similar magic. The arrows start flying and Bronwyn is hit. I thought for sure she was toast, but Theo and Arondir save her using the Alfirin seeds and a fiery piece of wood to cauterize the wound.
We check in with the Numenoreans who have made it to land and are riding as the sun rises. In Unfinished Tales, it does say that the Numenoreans didn’t use horses in war since all their wars were overseas in Middle-earth. While they had horses in their settlements in Middle-earth – those were typically used only by couriers and archers. While, yes, technically this is a departure from the source material, I think it’s a pretty innocuous one in my opinion.
Arondir refuses to give Adar the shard so the orcs start stabbing people. And here we see again this is definitely a more violent version of Middle-earth. Anyway, when Bronwyn is threatened, Theo reveals where the shard is, handing it over to Adar as we hear a thunderous sound in the distance. Adar tells Waldreg he has a task for him and the Numenoreans show up in full force taking on the group of orcs.
Numenor To The Rescue
In the battle, we see some cool moments, like Galadriel dodging an arrow and decapitating the archer. We see Isildur’s buddies Valandil and Ontomo in the battle and when Valandil stabs an orc and twists we get more crazy gushing blood that honestly looks more at home in the Shadow of Mordor games. Ontomo nearly gets taken out by an orc and we see Isildur is atop the hill with Miriel and he’s chomping at the bit to get into the action, so Miriel tells him to go.
Elendil gets into some trouble and gets knocked off his horse before being saved by Halbrand throwing a spear at an attacking orc. Real quick I will say that if Halbrand turns out to be Sauron, he’s saving an awful lot of people that are his enemies in this show. Isildur comes up to Elendil lying on the ground and there definitely seems to be a bit of a parallel between this moment and the moment to come many years down the road when Isildur will come to his father’s side as we saw in the Fellowship of the Ring.
Galadriel asks Arondir who the orcs’ commander is and he points out Adar and Galadriel gives chase – during which, Galadriel says “noro lim” to her horse – if this sounds familiar it’s because it’s the same phrase Arwen says to Asfaloth when she is pursued by the ringwraiths in the Fellowship of the Ring film.
Halbrand trips the horse Adar commandeered, but we see him get up so he’s alright. Halbrand stabs Adar in the hand as he reaches for the shard package thing, and Halbrand asks “Do you remember me?” When Adar says no, Halbrand almost kills him, but Galadriel stops him.
Galadriel Asks Adar About Sauron
Back in the village, Galadriel interrogates Adar, talking about elves being taken by Morgoth and tortured into orcs – very similar to Saruman’s speech in Fellowship of the Ring.
She says Adar is one of these elves – the Moriondor – a Quenya word meaning “sons of the dark”. Galadriel wants to know where Sauron is and threatens to bring the orcs into the sunlight. Adar says some stories about Sauron and he killed Sauron because he was using the orcs as a slave, but I don’t think we should believe him.
In response to Adar, Galadriel vows to eradicate every last orc while keeping Adar alive so that he will know all his offspring are dead before she kills him – which is like…super dark. So dark that our season 1 bad guy says “perhaps the search for Morgoth’s successor should have ended in your own mirror”…and let’s be honest from what we’ve seen he’s not entirely wrong.
Galadriel’s threat sounds pretty bonkers right after Adar is like “hey, we deserve a breath of life and a home” and she’s like “how bout instead I kill every last one of you”. While I’m not the biggest fan of Galadriel’s revenge kick, it is nice that the show is aware that this is not a desirable thing for the lady of light and seems to be pointing to her need to change.
A Halbrand-Galadriel Connection
Halbrand stops Galadriel from killing Adar, and we see that Adar had enough of a transformation that his blood is black like the other orcs. He then asks Halbrand who he is, to which Halbrand just walks away. Galadriel and Halbrand thank each other for stopping the killing of Adar.
Halbrand starts talking about not feeling he could be free of his past until today and says how the feeling of fighting by Galadriel’s side is something he want to hold on to – and bind it to his very being – which, again, gets added to a long list of Sauron-y things to say.
Galadriel says she felt it too and they kind of look at each other before getting interrupted. Ok, so I’ve made it no secret that I have zero interest in some Halbrand-Galadriel romance thing. Now some fans said they didn’t read this scene as romantic at all, but instead that they both had a sense of the other’s power during their fighting – and perhaps this is the first clue Galadriel might have that Halbrand isn’t what he claims to be.
Rings Of Power Episode 6 Ending Explained
Back in the village, Bronwyn and Miriel exchange pleasantries and Miriel is like – hey, you want this dude to be your king? And Bronwyn notices his pouch and is like “that’s good enough for me” and all hail King Halbrand! Galadriel gives the shard to Arondir, who gives it to Theo so he could get rid of it and be free of it – but psych – it’s just a hatchet. Turns out the errand for Waldreg is to go back to the downfallen tower, where he stabs the sword into the base of the monument. This releases the water behind the tower.
Then we see a nice father-son moment between Isildur and his father which is broken up by a loud rumbling, and all the boarded-up tunnel entrances begin to spout water as we see Waldregs work go into effect. Turns out the orc tunnels were a way for the lake to flow into Orodruin and as vast amounts of water flow into the lava – my prediction comes to pass and we have our first eruption of Mount Doom.
Galadriel Accepts Her Fate
Balls of fire crash all around and all heck breaks loose as people flee. We get a really cool shot of the huge cloud of smoke, ash, and fire comes ever closer to the village. And just when I thought I was onto something tying this lightning we see to the last image of Sauron when the ring is destroyed, I learned that Volcano eruptions can indeed cause lighting within their pyroclastic flow – it’s kind of wild stuff and totally worth a google if you wanna check it out.
In our last couple shots aside from people running, we see Adar has escaped the barn before it’s destroyed and Galadriel closes her eyes, seeming to accept whatever fate may come as we cut to black and roll credits.
We’re down to just two episodes left of this first season of Rings of Power and next week seems like we’ll be checking back in with The Stranger and Khazad-dum. I thought it was really nice to be following a single storyline for the entire episode this week, and this episode definitely brought some much-needed action and conflict to the table.
That being said, I’m always eager to see more of Durin, Elrond, and Khazad-dum so I’m very much looking forward to going back to the dwarven realm next week.
Also Read: Rings Of Power Episode 5 Easter Eggs: The Dead Marsh, The Creation Of Mithril And The Wolves
