Agatha All Along 1.04 and Rings of Power, Season finale

[selenak]

Agatha All Along 1.04: in which Rio/Aubrey Plaza rejoins the narrative while our heroines go through a trial by fire, also known as 1970s fashion and studio recordings. This series continues to be great fun, and strikes a good balance between being hilarious and offering unexpectedly touching character moments, as we get to know our leading ladies (and Teen) better. Alice's mother not being a victim of the road but using it, and the chant, to protect her daughter, and dying in the "real world" was a neat reveal, culminating in Alice literally finding her voice at the end. I also liked the little touch, not pointed out by dialogue but simply shown, that Lilia, the oldest and alive long enough to have existed through centuries where women actually were burned, reacts to the depictions of burning witches in a disturbed and traumatized way, kudos to Patti LuPone. And while the main emotional mood of the episodes is still arch camp hilarity, as when Agatha inevitably does some backstabbing (in this case using the mikrophone system of the "studio" to let the other witches listen to selected parts of her and Rio's conversation), it does manage a sense of emotional truth - both the Agatha and Teen scene when he wakes up and the final scene between Rio and Agatha, who were pushing the Exes vibe through the episode, culminating in the almost kiss when Rio, who has noticed Agatha's uncharacteristic but consistent concern for the boy, and did deduce Agatha thinks this might be her long lost son, says in an utterly unflamboyant and matter-of-fact way: "Agatha, that boy is not yours."

Which combined with her earlier admission of having hurt someone she loved by doing something that was "my job" of course invites all kind of speculation. My current guess is that while Agatha did make the proverbial devil's deal (her son versus the Darkhold), she did so believing, very Agatha like, she could cheat and keep both the kid and the Darkhold, and and that Rio was some sort of Enforcer type for Mephisto who came to collect. Which is also why she knows what exactly became of the boy afterwards, and Agatha does not.

It will of course be extremely interesting to see how Agatha will interact with the Teen now that she's got the crushing news. (And I don't think Rio was lying.) I have to admit I'm even more invested in seeing that relationship continue now, because "Dark Side parent changed by love for light side child" is a story that worked for me with Anakin/Vader, but not many other examples, whereas "Dark Side person has to struggle with unexpected soft spot for youngster NOT related" is still not overwritten.


Rings of Power 2.08: Speaking of Star Wars: and thus the season ends on an Empire Strikes Back note, with the villalin triumphant except for the part where he got emotionally rejected and the heroes are down and beaten, but not out and drawing strength from each other while determined to get back. Without putting down anyone else's efforts - for this was a season full of excellent acting - but the two Charleses, Charles Edwards as Celebrimbor and Charlie Vickers as Sauron, really did deliver an intense chamber play right till the end which comes in this episode, and it's amazing how both the writing and Charles Edward's performance managed to let Celebrimbor get the emotional upper hand even while he was tortured to death. This startet in the last episode and continues here; I mean, he even manages to provoke Sauron into killing him (for I do believe Sauron when he says he's able to keep Celebrimbor alive like this for a long time), and he really uses the fact that while Sauron got to know him through the season, it wasn't a one way street but he got to know Attanar/Sauron just as well. In addition to dying on his own terms, not Sauron's (in as much as one can while being tortured), Celebrimbor gets additional post mortem validation when Galadriel quotes him by name in the last scene to provide the remaining Elves with courage. Ave atque vale, best of Elven Smiths.

The death which really made me go for the hankerchief, though, was Adar's. Now the death itself was written on the cards, though like others I was expecting it to be delivered by Sauron with Morgoth's crown. But no. Of course Sauron would want his revenge by making Adar's death the mirror image of his own death a millennium earlier; it's brutal in both cases but additionally cruel for Adar because it happens at the hands of his children. And the salt in the would is the unexpected scene of grace immediately before that between him and Galadriel. I have to admit it didn't occur to me, though it should have, when Adar took Galadriel's ring from Elrond at the end of the last episode that his putting one of the Three on his own finger could have a healing effect. (Since the Three were shown to be be able to restore the trees and to push the inherent powers of their wearers early in the season.) And here the show avoided all that could easily have gone wrong, i.e. Adar's temporary physical and mental healing after centuries, nay, millennia of corruption isn't what provides redemption, it's what enables him to snap out of his My Lai mood, look at what's really going on with the Orcs and himself and reconsider. He's not returning to the Elf he was - as evidenced by him not telling Galadriel his original Elven name but stating that name no longer has meaning, he's Adar now and that has meaning for him - , but he's able to use all that happened to him and what he's done and now make a genuine offer of peace, return Nenya to Galadriel (being able to give up a Ring of Power definitely markes you as having the potential for goodness in this 'verse) and even forgive her. (For the killing of the Orcs.) (Conversely, Galadriel accepting this and going for the chance for peace reconfirms as in the last episode how much she herself has changed and learned through what she experienced.) That is his moment of grace and redemption. But because Adar is living in a tragedy, it comes too late as far as the fate of the Orcs is concerned, because he's lost them through his behavior in the last few episodes, they've gone over to Sauron, and thus he dies at their hands five minutes later. Adar was one of the strongest characters the show had, and one of the best fleshings out of a Tolkienesque concept that hadn't really been worked out in the original, and while I will miss him, I think his entire storyline was really well done.

(Doesn't mean I'm not going to look for fanfiction, not just covering the years before but also AUs where he survives. For canon, his death was just right, but that's why fanfiction is different.)

To round off the trio of fallen characters dying a redemptive death, King Durin does snap out of the greed-for-mountain-treasure craze at the very last moment when he realises what he has awoken and that his son's and everyone else's lives are now at stake, and I suppose it's good for (Prince, now King) Durin's emotional well being that he didn't have to commit patricide, but Dad left him a truly awful legacy; as Narvi points out when last we see the Dwarves, the late King Durin has extorted incredible amounts of treasure out of the other Dwarven kings and they want the Rings they were promised for this (but if new King Durin hands out those rings after having drastically found out what they do to a Dwarf, he'll be scum, which makes for a Skylla and Charybdis situation indeed), and then there's already a rival claimant for the throne. And that's leaving aside the fact Sauron is now in possession of a gigantic Orc army and practically next door, post fall of Eregion. Sucks to be Durin, and since I don't think it was ever said in a definite way what became of the Seven, I'm truly curious to find out how he'll handle this situation.

Elrond's arc this season completes as he puts on one of the Three (not yet the one he'll hand up with, because Gil-Galad is still around) to help healing Galadriel after her Sauron duel. The two of them had reconciled last episode, but I think this is where he accepts that she was right in terms of the Three, and/or his own capacity for darkness and light. His earlier horror when the Orcs burn Celebrimbor's library was another reminder of Elrond-the-scholar, and presumably the situation the season leaves him is when he gets the idea to create a sanctuary for both the Elves and everyone else that is also a center of learning in Rivendell.

Galadriel and Sauron, the Rematch: as with Celebrimbor, when he tells him "I learned so much from you" and how sad he is their time together is ending in the last episode I don't think Sauron is lying when he tells Galadriel his illusions in her mind last season weren't all lies and that he'd made all of MiddleEarth worship her as his Queen, that he still wants that. And naturally, he doesn't get in either case why some shared traits don't mean either Elf actually wants to join the Evil Overlord business or believes that Dictatorship and Unity-by-Force is the way to go for MiddleEarth. Thinking about it, it's fitting that it's Galadriel, not Adar, whom a frustrated Sauron actually stabs with Morgoth's crown to end their duel (though note: in the shoulder, not in the heart), because this is the symbol of the Rule he's envisioned for himself (and her) that she's rejecting. As for Galadriel, as mentioned earlier she's in a better state than she was last season but that doesn't mean she's completely immune towards darker feelings; Sauron's last body switcheroo - assuming her own shape - was a neat one to bring that out, as it was definitely self loathing along with anti-Sauron-feeling that made her have a go at him in that round.

Numinor and the former Southlanders: naturally, Pharazon doesn't accept Miriel's Valar endorsement but explains it away by declaring Sauron helped her (this is actually a clever lie and one he's telling himself as well as others, if the Palantir has made him realize that Haldbrand whom Miriel after all wanted to make King courtesy of Galadriel is Sauron, and I assume he did realize, since we were shown Haldbrand's face in his Palantir vision), while Earien finally realizes her boss is a tyrant and saves her father, and Elendil gets Narsil from Miriel as he goes on the Quest to rally the non-Pharazon-obedient Numenorians. Meanwhile, Isildur finds out about all of these developments by Kamen the insufferable coming to colonize the South/Lowlanders in the name of Numenor. Isildur's storyline was practically finished after half the season and he does feel as something of an afterthought in this episode, but I found it interesting he made the unheroic yet sensible choice of not immediately starting a resistance but getting on Kamen's ship, because how else is he going to get to Numenor, reunite with his father and find out what the hell is going on there.

The no-longer-Stranger and the not-yet-Hobbits: have all but disappeared these last few episodes and are now making their return, as the show finally stops dancing around his identity and has the Stranger identify himself as Gandalf (though not with the line "Gandalf is me" as I was expecting, but "Gandalf - that's what they'll call me") and find his staff once he's made the friendship-over-power choice of prioritizing saving Nori and Poppy. The Dark Wizard's identity, otoh, is still in the literal dark, so I'll continue to go with the assumption he's one of the Blues. Nori and Poppy leading the surviving Stoor on their first migration while saying a temporary (come on, it's Gandalfl, he never stays away from Hobbits for long) farewell to their Wizard while a having-found-himself Stranger/Gandalf concludes the season in a better state than most of the other characters, singing with Tom Bombadil wraps up their story for the season. I don't think it was as strong as last season, but I continue to like it, and I certainly was won around by Rory Kinnear's Tom Bombadil to that particular character.

All in all: a captivating season, and I hope Amazon won't be intimidated by the haters but will continue because I want season 3. Not least because Elrond, Durin and Disa need to reunite.

Comments

[vivdunstan]

Just peeking at your Rings of Power writeup. We are still to start watching! But yes, sounds like exciting stuff :)

[selenak]

It was!

[profiterole_reads]

Also, both Jen and Alice are a little into Rio, which means we have 4 sapphics + Teen. They didn't lie about it being the queerest Marvel show and I'm loving it. <3

[kore]

"I don't know if I hate her or I want her phone number." "I know!" I loved it.

[selenak]

It certainly is a great improvement over Steve Rogers briefly listening to someone discuss his dead husband in terms of representation. :)

[profiterole_reads]

And they could have done so much more, either with Steve/Sam (my MCU OTP! <3) or Steve/Bucky.

[kore]

"Alice's mother not being a victim of the road but using it, and the chant, to protect her daughter, and dying in the "real world" was a neat reveal, culminating in Alice literally finding her voice at the end"

I cried, I admit it. Also, I was SO HAPPY Alice didn't die, and I hope they're not going to do that "each witch gets picked off" thing until it's Agatha, Rio and Teen. At this point I want Jac Scheaffer to write us a Scarlet Witch movie with all these ladies. And Wanda.

"My current guess is that while Agatha did make the proverbial devil's deal (her son versus the Darkhold), she did so believing, very Agatha like, she could cheat and keep both the kid and the Darkhold"

YES that's what makes sense and while Agatha is delightfully awful I think sacrificing her own son would go too far, and buy into dumb witchy stereotypes besides. I still don't think A has been on the Road before -- she said one person was with her? and all her advice is still out of the Ballad. She's a cheater and a bluffer, and I love her. I think Rio was where Agatha couldn't bend the rules, somehow.

Rio seems totally unaffected by the Trials? While everyone else was screaming and in pain she was sitting there reading like NME! And what was that bit about "Didn't think you had it in you," and the wink to Teen? Maybe that wasn't "Mrs Hart" at all.

The "I'm THE Greenwitch" moment was wild too. Nobody else has done that.

[selenak]

I was pretty sure someone would die when they started the road, but now I think poor Sharon will pretty much have been it. Her death demonstrated this is really dangerous (and that Agatha is still really callous about most people), mission accomplished. I see the survival chances for everyone else pretty high. And btw, I agree with you that Agatha only claims she's done this before, but didn't really do it.

Rio seems totally unaffected by the Trials?

Quite. She came across as very certain nothing about this would endanger her.

[landofnowhere]

Yay for a resolution to Rings of Power Season 2!

After last week's orc discussion I thought "Adar will be killed by orcs" was likely for thematic reasons, but I didn't expect the Adar redemption moment! I still don't think that the show is doing particularly well with the Problem of Orcs. Grug's conversion happened offstage, and he didn't get to state his reasons, so it felt more like "Sauron is very persuasive" than a meaningful orc mutiny (the orcs come off as the sort of fickle mob that you get in Shakespeare). And he has now been killed by Sauron after trying to express a dissenting opinion. On the other hand, we had the "pity will not defeat Sauron" line from the Dark Wizard, to which I immediately said "yes it will", because I know my LoTR, but given that they have been making the Orcs more pitiable this season I wonder if it's also setting up for something later in this season where the Harfoots take pity on an orc. Anyway it's sad how Adar came so close to saving the orcs (maybe, assuming Galadriel can get the other elves to cooperate) but failed :-(

I think the location that the elves are in at the end of the season may be Rivendell? Though Elrond has some building to do. Galadriel's waking up scene was a nice visual parallel to Frodo's waking up scene in Rivendell in the Fellowship of the Rings movie.

[selenak]

Grug's conversion happened offstage, and he didn't get to state his reasons, so it felt more like "Sauron is very persuasive" than a meaningful orc mutiny

I disagree, because we've seen Grug question Adar's willingness to sacrifice increasing number of Orcs for two episodes before that, especially the last one. Also, it occured to me that the Orcs presumably don't have the Elves' millennia-long life span (if, that is, they don't die by violence), so none of the current Orcs would have actually known Sauron and what he was like other than reportingly, which is presumably why Grug thinks he can do with Sauron what he did with Adar, i.e. express a dissenting opinion and/or question the strategy, and sadly and immediately learns otherwise.

Anyway it's sad how Adar came so close to saving the orcs (maybe, assuming Galadriel can get the other elves to cooperate) but failed :-(

Yes indeed, and that's certainly a challenge to think through - if Adar does not die and takes the Orc army back to Mordor without further pillaging, does Galadriel have enough influence to convince the rest of the Elves to let it go and try a detente? I assume she'd firstly have to convince Gil-Galad, since he is still the High King, and that might be possible because since having one of the Three he keeps having flashes of precognition and might be able to deduce this could change the history of Middle Earth in a radical way. But otoh, your avarage Elf might think they're both nuts and clearly corrupted themselves, so who knows.

Presumably the Dark Wizard and Sauron would make other attempts of getting the Orcs for themselves as well, but - it was definitely chance.


I think the location that the elves are in at the end of the season may be Rivendell?

Yes, I thought so as well! At the very least, the association was there.

[landofnowhere]

I'm glad that Grug's arc worked better for you than it did for me! It may work better for me on rewatch -- I do feel like I am getting more out of the Orc bits due to the conversations here.

I'll be interested to see how Orc politics is handled going forward -- having killed off Adar and Grug, we need to start from scratch with Orc leadership (unless I'm forgetting someone, which I well may be!) I did realize that in Tolkien canon, Sauron loses the battle at the end of the Second Age in part because some of the Orc chieftains choose to sit out that battle (and then kill Isildur in the aftermath). So I expect that "Sauron struggles to control the Orcs" will be a major plot point throughout the rest of the series, but I'm not exactly sure how it will play out.

[labingi]

Re. RoP, I'm glad you're enjoying it, and I wish I could understand. Hopefully, I won't come off as a hater: I do actually like a lot of its concepts (and some of its scenes), but where I see unskillful writing that feels like an outline of an interesting idea to explore, you seem to see quite a bit of genuinely good writing--and you're far from alone. Many people I respect do. It bemuses me; I can't get across that gulf. RoP reminds me somewhat of the Star Wars prequels in that I see creative ideas and elements of good story struggling to get out through very sparse, cookie-cutter dialogue.

I did have fun watching it this season though. It was diverting, and I looked forward to that every week.

[selenak]

Different strokes for different people; I, too, have had the experience of feeling this way about creations many people I respect adored and wrote lots of meta for (I say meta and not fanfiction, because I think a case can be made that flawed media produces more, not less good fanfiction), Good Omens for example. (Nothing to do with recent reveals about Neil Gaiman as a person! I still think Sandman, the comics, are a masterpiece, and I love many of Terry Pratchett's novels. It's just that both Good Omens the book and later the tv show has never been able to evoke more than "well, that's nice" mild liking from me, so all the outpouring of thought and love was one one which I couldn't emotionally or intellectually follow.)

I can see the Prequels comparison; the Prequels, and prequel era media like Clone Wars, tell stories that speak to me more than the OT, actually, but yes, the dialogue is atrocious at times (and would it ever have benefitted from someone like Leigh Brackett!), and the general message imparted with a sledgehammer (though it was also in the OT). Likewise, no, I don't think the scriptwriters are up to Tolkien standards - but I do think they have managed to create something that interests and moves me throughout two seasons now, and that it some cases even deals with a problem I had with Tolkien (i.e. the whole concept of an EvilMcEvilNothingButEvil race which our heroes can joke about competing in killing, for example), or manages to overturn my Tolkienverse opinions (one of those was that I never ever wanted to see Sauron as a character and thought we were tremendously lucky that PJ got talked out of a Sauron/Aragorn duel in RotK; I still think the later, of course, but both Charlie Vickers' performance and the writing have changed my mind completely on the former).

[labingi]

I agree that RoP has some really neat concepts, chiefly for Sauron and Adar (somewhat the Dwarves too). On the whole, they seem good at writing morally dark/grey and bad at writing strongly good characters, which, I think, is characteristic of our narratives in general, probably since post-WWII.