Rings of Power Season 2 Episode 7 Review: Soul Not Included

War comes to elven lands in Rings of Power Season 2 Episode 7 , as Adar’s Orc forces lay siege to Eregion. This is the season’s most focused episode so far, and with that central conflict driving all the action, it feels like finally, something is happening. That said, most of the episode’s biggest moments have little to draw on outside the immediate moment and end up falling a little flat.

After Adar’s rather predictable betrayal at the end of Episode 6, Galadriel finds herself stuck, at least until Elrond visits. He removes his cloak pin under Adar’s watchful gaze – a rather suspicious action, especially under the circumstances – and gives it to Galadriel without the Orc Father noticing. She breaks free and escapes in a tense sequence that does more than anything else in the show so far to make us see Orcs as complex creatures. It’s not much, admittedly – just a few sequences of Orcs doing normal things and milling about with friends – but it’s also the only time we’ve seen them behave as anything other than mindless murderers.

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Galadriel gets out of the Orc trenches and meets up with Arondir, freshly arrived from the woods of Pelargir, and the two make their way toward Eregion. He joins up with the Lindon elves for battle, while Galadriel finally tries to find Celebrimbor and extract him from Sauron’s grip. She’s a few episodes too late for that, though.

Celebrimbor is at his breaking point, forced to complete the nine rings despite growing suspicion about Annatar’s real identity. He’s paranoid and shattered, cut off from his former friends and colleagues and convinced he’s going mad – and he’s not far off on that last point. The relationship between Celebrimbor and Sauron is at its most vicious and cruel, but even after destroying what little hope Celebrimbor had left, Sauron still plays the victim and twists reality around to make Celebrimbor appear at fault. It’s a far more interesting depiction of him as a deceiver than a straightforward raid on Eregion would have been, though it, too, would have benefited from more time and stronger development.

Take an important moment with Celebrimbor later in the episode, for example. Charles Edwards makes a moving plea to the few elves who continue trusting him to realize that it’s not strength that will save them from Sauron. It’s light. Which is a genuinely touching concept with ties to the elves’ relationship to the Valar – their gods – but this is literally the first moment Rings of Power has ever even tried broaching that subject. The lack of substance robs the speech of its emotional power and makes a weighty moment feel rather shallow, or like you’ve missed something along the way that a recap didn’t cover.

While the battle rages on inside Celebrimbor’s mind, war has broken out around Eregion. Everything you’d expect from a good Lord of the Rings war sequence is here. You’ve got your slow-motion elven acrobatics, wide shots of catapults unleashing devastating damage across a formerly immaculate city, people screaming, crying, and dying. Siege machinery threatens to pull down a wall – though, confusingly, the defenders make no effort to actually dismantle the machine. It’s made of wood! You have fire! The elves have clearly been at peace for too long.

Related: Rings of Power Season 2 Episode 5 Review: A String of Tragedies

That giant troll – the biggest in Lord of the Rings, apparently – from earlier in the season finally makes an extended appearance, and he’s a twisted, horrible addition to the enemy’s ranks. We even get a short sequence that’s easily one of the most interesting things Rings of Power has done with fan expectations. At one point during the battle, Elrond promises Gil-Galad that help will come at dawn, just as Gandalf promised aid to Rohan in The Two Towers. Dawn comes, the sun rises – and no aid appears. It’s a fantastic little inversion that shows just how different and desperate the Second Age was compared to events in Tolkien’s trilogy.

It’s not enough to give the episode the soul it needs, though. This is a pivotal moment in the Second Age, the start of the collapse of Elvendom, and the desecration of a center of beauty and knowledge. Rings of Power Season 2 Episode 7 gives you no indication of what’s at stake here, and that’s partly a result of Rings of Power doing so little with elves and their culture to begin with. That said, it’s also just the consequence of poor structure in general.

For two seasons, we’ve had almost no idea of Eregion aside from dramatic landscape shots and Celebrimbor’s smithy, not even a glimpse at who lives there, how they live, what they do. Peter Jackson’s The Two Towers and Return of the King made the human and even cultural elements very plain with just a few shots and some brief, quiet moments while the action builds. Rings of Power doesn’t give itself the space for necessary build-up like that, though, so you end up with something that checks all the right boxes and is even inspired at times, but manages to miss the point anyway.

Meanwhile, under the mountain, King Durin ignores Prince Durin’s pleas to hold off digging further and claims Disa simply imagined the evil she sensed. His transformation is complete, and the culture he fostered is, seemingly, no more. It’s a tragic moment, though Rings of Power Season 2 Episode 7 prefers to focus on the family drama and Balrog threat over the death of Khazad-Dum culture. Disa and Prince Durin stand against their king and struggle to convince their fellow dwarves to abandon their kind and do what’s right. Rings of Power has been very clear where this is all going to end, though as ever, Sophia Nomvete and Owain Arthur lend these scenes emotional weight and believability that makes them standout moments.

Related: Rings of Power Season 2 Episode 4 Recap: (Don’t) Think of the Fans

Rings of Power Season 2 Episode 7: The Verdict

Rings of Power Season 2 Episode 7 is easily the series’ most focused episode. Leaving out subplots with little tie to the main narrative and tying the action around a central theme is something that sounds fundamental, but it’s the first time we’ve seen that level of structure and intent in the season. The result is a much stronger story, though one that contends with the missteps of previous episodes and misses out on its full potential.