“The· ring of powerTo pick up the pace, their wishes are granted by “Udûn,” an hour-long battle sequence interspersed with a few short interludes to help viewers gather their thoughts. This is the most focused episode to date, as it stands out in the absence of the two main narrative threads of The Lost and the Hobbit Migration. It’s also the most important thing.
Having a stronger and larger army seems to matter little when it comes to attacking Middle-earth fortresses. Just as Saruman learned this the hard way in “The Two Towers,” Adar learned it in the opening moments of “Udûn.” He and his battalion of orcs and human conscripts march to Ostyris, the watchtower where Bronwyn, Aronda, and their people have taken refuge. The battle is promised to be short, and apart from no battle at all, the good guys have little hope of survival. is doing. Of course he is right, but he could not have predicted the trap he had just stepped into. With a few arrows and graceful moves, Arondil makes a nimble escape and knocks down an entire place via a booby-trapped tower, presumably wiping out Adder’s army in one fell swoop. While he hasn’t yet shown as much personality as some of the show’s other characters, you can always expect Arondir to do ballet action in his sequences.
Victories are short-lived, however, as one battle tends to start the next. After retreating to a nearby village and setting up a poor defense for an inevitable second round, Arondir’s forces appear to have scored yet another victory against Adar. (If all this seems too good to be true, it is. He’s being cornered by an absolute unit of orcs who are dangerously trying to finish him off.
He was saved at the last moment, but not before the orcs spilled black viscous blood all over him. I can’t help but notice a nearby corpse that has been mutilated. Then comes a terrible realization for our heroes: they were their own people who had mingled with the orcs, who had foolishly accepted Adder’s offer of peace in exchange for an oath of allegiance. Who could have guessed they weren’t trustworthy?) They’re not the only troops capable of setting traps, and soon arrows begin raining down from the sky, two of which attack Bronwyn.
It’s the most dangerous one of the main characters has ever been through, and seeing Bronwyn impaled by two arrows is the nicest thing she’s done to her son Theo earlier in the episode. Some viewers may worry that his speech was like a swan song. “This shadow is small and gone,” she tells him, echoing What Sam said to Frodo at the end of The Two Towers. “Beyond its reach there is eternal light and high beauty. If you find the light, the shadow will not find you.”
Aronda takes her to a makeshift fort where the group’s non-combatants were hiding, but not before many of his compatriots are killed by a hail of arrows. Thus begins the darkest and most violent sequence in the series so far. Bronwyn barely survives after cauterizing his wounds, Adder breaks into the keep and demands to know where “it” is. “It” in this case is the sword Theo found, which we are led to believe was Sauron’s own. , Arondir refuses to tell him that, even when Adar’s soldiers start killing hostages.
How many times can you save a good guy at the last minute before it’s no longer an effective plot device? It’s hard to say, but it certainly hasn’t happened yet. Shortly after Adar takes off with its covered blades, a distant howl is heard. This only means that Galadriel, Halbrand, and horses with hundreds of Numenorians approach. Galadriel and Halbrand track down Addar to retrieve his sword, and Halbrand almost kills him after asking if Addar remembers him (he does not). But Galadriel wants him alive.
Before that, however, we are given a brief respite to welcome Halbrand back as King of the Southlands, and Elendil and Isildur bond in their first father-son battle, the unbreakable bond between horse and rider. The Lord of the Rings has never been short of epic battles — I must say that few are as bloody as the one we just witnessed — but , these little moments in between have always been its true heart.
As he is being interrogated, we finally learn all of Adder’s dealings: he is the “Son of Darkness,” one of the first Orcs, taken by Morgoth, and transformed into his current form. An elf who fell to She then promises to kill the last of his kind, saving him for the last time and all his “children” die before she can plunge a dagger into his poisoned heart. (Yeah!) What’s his reaction? “Looks like I’m not the only living elf disfigured by the dark.” He’s on point, Galadriel.
But what about the sword that has not yet been removed from its covering? Galadriel returns it to Aronda, who tells Theo about it and advises him to throw the cursed blade into the sea. Last seen relieving his people in the hope of being safe and rewarding — secretly took the blade and replaced it with a mere axe. The old man thrusts a true blade into a puzzle-like lock, causing a chain of earthquakes. An ordinary mountain before an eruption begins, the sky turns black.
Dear readers, Udun is a valley of Mordor believed to have been formed by volcanic activity. A mountain that appears as a volcano is a mountain of destruction. The eruption we just witnessed was a cataclysm in itself, but it pales in comparison to the upcoming eruptions.