the worst fantasy tv show of 2024 is no surprise

Rings of Power season two was the worst fantasy tv show of 2024 and no one is surprised.

I wrote in-depth recaps and reviews for all the episodes as they came out, so we’re just going to cover the main points in this overall review of Rings of Power season two.

Some positives, briefly, include the fantastic performances for Círdan, Adar, and Celebrimbor. Círdan was a highlight of the early season, and Celebrimbor’s descent into madness at the hands of Sauron was sold to me purely on the acting skills of Charles Edwards, as the scripts failed to bring any of that story to life in dialogue (which I will go into later).

Adar was another highlight of the season, as he is a rare thing where the character is not from the source material but he is intriguing and exciting. This is the kind of fresh idea you can bring to Tolkien’s work that feels Tolkienesque, but they did end up messing that up by killing him at the end. What a waste of their one good idea.

Sauron is Not a Genius Manipulator

Straight into the Celebrimbor thing. One of my biggest frustrations watching Rings of Power season 2 was that the show obviously wanted me to think Sauron was being very crafty and clever. The issue is, they were telling me he was being manipulative while giving him lines that sounded like you’d asked an AI to “write some manipulative dialogue for Sauron”.

It was unconvincing, and insulting to the story they were trying to tell. No one, especially not beings thousands of years old, would fall for any of the rubbish these writers had Sauron say to the Elves.

Make Númenor Great Again

One of the most exciting plots of Rings of Power season 2 should have been the eventual fall of Númenor. There are plenty of tricky elements at play here with some condensing of the timeline (which I’m not against – TV is a different medium), but those elements don’t really come into what made this part of the season a failure.

Elendil is wasted as an implied concubine of the overthrown queen, when he is one of the strongest actors of the show and one of the best characters from the first season.

There were a lot of mixed messages and metaphors, and the plot just kept tripping over itself trying to extend a very thin thread. This is the most frustrating part because there is so much they could have done if they had only read the source material! (even just the appendix!)

This is the storyline that could even bring in Game of Thrones fans as it’s ripe for political intrigue and backstabbing. But they failed to pull off any of the ideas they claimed to have for it.

We Fucking KNEW it was Gandalf

I think I might be alone in saying that the story with the Harfoots and the Stranger in season 1 was my favourite part of the show. That’s fine. We all like different things. But this did mean that when they gave these characters about three scenes in the entire season 2 (bit of an exaggeration) it felt like they were just shoehorning in this part of the story.

Tom Bombadil was fantastic and it was so wonderful to see that character brought to life on the screen. It was a dream come true for many fans. But every other aspect of that story sucked.

We knew he was Gandalf. We knew. We said so when we first saw him, and have continued to say so ever since. But the writers put in their earplugs and ignored everyone else, and pretended they were being mysterious.

It was frustrating and insulting. They wasted the little time they gave these characters to mystery boxes we had opened earlier!

The Ballsed up Sack of Eregion

The final and gravest crime of Rings of Power season 2 was the finale. The Sack of Eregion is where this show should have performed at its best. These big, dramatic moments require a lot of money, which is all this show has going for it.

But somehow, they fucked it up.

The battle scenes were empty. Three or four elves went up against maybe ten orcs on an open field and we were supposed to think it was an epic battle.

Decisions made by characters made no logical sense, and then the eventual coming of the Dwarves (which they tried to make similar to Gandalf riding over the hill with the riders of Rohan) was an empty anti-climax of two dwarves waddling through the ruined city.

That’s It for the Worst Fantasy TV Show of 2024

Rings of Power season 2 was the worst fantasy tv show of 2024 because it was a waste of so much potential. There were some brief moments of hope, but it ultimately failed to be either a good adaptation or a decent story in its own right.

For in-depth commentary on all the episodes, I’ll list the reviews below: