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.