Charlotte Brändström has been in the industry since 1984, with directorial credits on shows like The Witcher, Outlander, and Jupiter’s Legacy. She’s to direct this episode and the following one. If “Udûn” is any indication, fans are in for quite a treat next week too.
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“Udûn” is the big fantasy battle climax that the show has been setting up the armies for. It’s this season’s answer to Helm’s Deep. Though it isn’t nearly as huge as Peter Jackson’s iconic clash of good and evil, this smaller-scale conflict is still stellar. Arondir and Bronwyn’s small encampment of surviving humans resolve to survive the coming Orc army. Though half of their forces turned to serve Adar, the remaining human forces devise one clever plan after another to do battle with their nightmarish foe. It’s a near-perfect prolonged battle scene. It’s fast-paced and brutal but firmly grounded. It’s fantastical without ever feeling silly. It pushes the bounds of what might be allowed in a TV-14 production, with some genuinely impressive displays of violence. The budget is on-screen, and the fight choreography perfectly hits the mark between realism and fantasy.
For a show that’s spent so much of its time cutting back and forth across thousands of miles to wildly disparate stories, “Udûn” is laser-focused. Not a moment of screen-time is wasted in this episode, it feels more like a feature film than it does episode six of an ongoing series. The Harfoots’ journey across Middle-earth, the drama between Elrond and Gil-Galad, and the Dwarves led by Durin do not appear in this episode. There is one narrative, no time for B-stories, and the focus allows this episode to flourish. This episode draws multiple plot lines together, which is both cathartic as characters finally get to meet and epic as the battle undergoes its biggest twist.
“Udûn” manages to be packed with new information while also paying off some of the most important setups in the series. Galadriel and Halbrand finally get to take to the battlefield in the exchange they’ve been talking about for weeks now, and it’s as epic as it needs to be. Morfydd Clark has been excellent as Galadriel since the beginning, she’s a clear standout. The clash between her and Adar reveals a ton of fascinating information, but it’s also one of the strongest exchanges in the show so far. Adar was a bit generic in his debut, and he’s still not exactly a breath of fresh air in the world of fantasy villainy, but this episode does reveal new layers to the preening wannabe god. Rather than feeling unoriginal, the show manages to feel classic. This is the stuff that D&D campaigns and other fantasy worlds are made of, and it’s exactly as much fun as it should be.
This is a clear high-point for Rings of Power so far, but there’s still room to grow. This was a stellar battle scene. It manages to keep the tension and pulse-pounding action for the full hour, there are real stakes throughout, no one feels safe, and the lows and highs are genuinely powerful. It’s more than just a flashy clash of swords. Rings of Power has received a lot of accusations of empty spectacle. Everyone agrees that most of the show looks great, but some critics have claimed that there’s nothing of interest behind the fancy effects. That’s never really been true, though audience mileage may vary, this episode packs in tension, meaning, and emotional catharsis into its outstanding battle scenes. Previous episodes have struggled to put focus on the right aspects of the story, but “Udûn” is a masterclass in packing a ton of great content into an hour and still leaving the audience wanting more.
Rings of Power started big, and it’s on track to end much bigger. Any viewer who enjoyed the show early, but has gradually lost interest needs to tune in for “Udûn”. This is what the entire show has been building to, and there are still two episodes to play with. With another season on the way, Rings of Power has a lot of room to grow, but it’s reached a new height with its sixth episode. It may have been a bumpy ride to get to this episode, but it’s well worth it now that the show is here. It’s hard to imagine how Brändström will follow up her first episode or how the finale could top this, but Rings of Power has proven that they can do what they set out to do.
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