‘Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power’ Episode Two Recap – ‘Adrift’

In this second episode of The Rings of Power, Elrond tries to mend an old friendship, Galadriel makes for land and Nori builds a rapport with the mysterious meteor man. This is also the first episode where we meet some dwarves and also encounter some very well-designed monsters that our heroes will be doing battle with.

We first see the Harfoots, who are at the edge of a smoldering crater where a man just landed from, seemingly, outer space. Nori shows some serious courage as she approaches the man to rouse him, and he displays some apparent telekinetic abilities before passing out again. Nori and Poppy set The Stranger up to recover in hiding.

Galadriel paddles her way through The Sundering Sea. An intimidating shadow in the distance turns out to be a raft of shipwrecked humans. They are suspicious of Galadriel, and even more so when they realize she is an elf. She is nearly cast away when the raft is attacked by a massive sea monster. Galadriel is the only survivor besides the human Halbrand, who hailed from the Southlands before they were destroyed by Orcs. Hearing of Orcs, Galadriel requests that the human takes her to their last known location.

The elf Arondir and human Bronwyn explore a ruined town but find that there are curiously no corpses or survivors. They discover a series of tunnels, and Arondir crawls into the tunnels to investigate only to be captured by the underground creatures. Bronwyn returns to town to convince them to evacuate, only being able to do so when she and her son are nearly killed by one of the creatures, a vicious Orc.

Celebrimbor tells Elrond that he needs to create a forge to support his latest project. Elrond requests an audience with the dwarves of Khazad-Dun, only to discover that his friend Prince Durin has since soured on the Elf. Elrond attempts to beat Durin in a Dwarven test of stamina where they take turns smashing rocks, but he forfeits, only managing to not be banned for life when he is invited to dinner by Durin’s wife Disa. Durin admits that he was hurt from not hearing from Elrond in 20 years, which pass by much faster for Elves.

Nori continues to nurse The Stranger back to health despite Poppy’s fears. She attempts to communicate with him, but he speaks a language that neither Harfoot recognize. More of The Stranger’s mysterious powers are hinted at further in a scene where he snaps a stick he was using write with, which simultaneously breaks Nori’s father Largo’s leg from a huge distance away. When they approach the man at night with firefly-filled lanterns, the man moves the fireflies to highlight a constellation in the sky that Nori doesn’t recognize.

Durin is convinced by Elrond to hear his proposal, which would likely be to aid Celebrimbor with his smithing in some way. Durin discusses the proposal with his father, the king of Khazad-Dun, who is much more suspicious of Elrond’s motives. Durin ensures his father that he believes that Elrond isn’t aware of a recent discovery of theirs, as they both admire whatever that unseen discovery is.