Rings of Power season 2: how Tom Bombadil's debut follows Tolkien

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2 (2024), starring Morfydd Clark and Charlie Vickers, brings in Tom Bombadil in live action, Entwives, Barrow-wights, and what I think is a pretty huge reference to the Shire. There's also good horse content this season.

The title fits a big tree episode, since the branches of trees will inevitably give this Istar his staff. 'Eldest' is a superlative form of the word elder, which is also a type of wood. Harry Potter fans know it as the source of the Elder Wand, a name that refers both to the wood the wand was made from and to the ancient status of that superior wand. So maybe JD and Patrick are saying the wizards and wands of this universe are older than anything J.K. Rowling wrote.

Elrond and Galadriel argue on the road as Tolkien's 'Amazon' Galadriel

We open on trees that have been cut down and made into Círdan's boats for the voyage to Valinor. Turning their backs on that promised afterlife voyage are Elrond and Galadriel, and the camera stays on those boats as the troops march past.

I love the camera work and the blocking between Elrond and Galadriel. Each of them childishly upstages the other by stopping in their tracks while the other steps forward, forcing that one to turn around. Elrond does it first, and then Galadriel does it too. The poor elves in their squad are like the kids in the back of the van while Mom and Dad argue over directions.

Galadriel has tied her hair up in an interesting braid in this episode. In Tolkien's Letter 348, he wrote that "she was then of Amazon disposition and bound her hair as a crown when taking part in athletic feats," and I love how Galadriel totally embodies that here.

The collapsed Brandywine bridge and Galadriel's paranoia about Sauron

Based on the map, the bridge crosses the Brandywine River, meaning we would be south of where the Shire will eventually be settled and north of Sarn Ford. In the past we've wondered whether Poppy Proudfellow could be the source of the name Brandywine, and if the show establishes that, I'm sure no one will be mad.

One of my favorite transitions in the series is how they dissolve from the ink of a map to the real location. Before, they showed the letters of Rhûn glowing on the nighttime desert. Here, the bridge that was completed on the map cross dissolves into its collapsed state in real life. Elrond observes it was caused by lightning, while Galadriel assumes it was Sauron. Sauron conjured a storm in Eregion, and maybe that storm continued to float around different access points around Eregion and geographically sealed it off. The river below also looks drained, and Gil-galad mentioned seeing rivers running dry in his visions back in episode 3.

They elect to go south through the Tyrn Gorthad, otherwise known as the Barrow Downs, which in the text is where the hobbits meet Tom Bombadil. When that location is mentioned, Galadriel's mind drifts, and for these wearers of trinkets, nothing triggers them more than a hand reaching out toward them from the abyss, as if someone is going to take their ring. I also appreciate the possibility that Sauron might have less to do with these roadblocks, and that Galadriel is simply that paranoid. That paranoia has been one effective way he has gotten under her skin.

Tom Bombadil, played by Rory Kinnear, finally appears in live action

In Rhûn, the Istar Stranger finds Tom Bombadil, played by Rory Kinnear. In Fellowship of the Ring, Tom shows up in the Old Forest singing songs and possessing a mysterious magical quality: he is resistant to the One Ring, able to calm Old Man Willow and able to face down the Barrow-wights. Tolkien never established exactly what he is, though readers have speculated he could be a Maia or some kind of earthly spirit. Tom is a vibe, and it's so cool to see him in live action, because Peter Jackson omitted him from his films. Tolkien once described him in a letter as "the spirit of the vanishing Oxford and Berkshire countryside."

Tom's lyrics come from the nonsensical walking song he sings around the hobbits in Fellowship, which is listed in the index as one continuous song. He returns to different parts of it throughout the episode, but the lines about sandflies in the grass and bees around the willow are new. So Tom apparently changes the words as he goes through his life, or whatever you call his existence. Or maybe he's singing to the bees in his line of sight, with the beehive in the background.

Old Man Ironwood swallows the Stranger

When a scrap of Sadoc's map leaves the Stranger's hand and lands on a branch of Old Man Ironwood, the way Tom watches it implies he might be controlling that wind, or that he can commune with whatever force is controlling the breeze. The Stranger thinks this branch is the staff from his visions, but the tree swallows him. I like how practical many of these effects look. They use the tree's branches and leaves to mask the final slurp of the Stranger's hand behind the bark.

This is based on Old Man Willow in the Old Forest in Fellowship, a spirit in a tree who wrapped around Merry and Pippin until Tom Bombadil sang to it. A similar scene occurs in The Two Towers in Fangorn Forest, but there it's Treebeard the Ent who saves them. This tree is named Old Man Ironwood, and I'm going to assume he's somehow related to Old Man Willow.

Tom pulls the Stranger out with the words "dig deep, drink water," which is what Tom says to Old Man Willow to free the hobbits in Fellowship. In the film The Two Towers, Peter Jackson gave a version of that line to Treebeard. Since the Stranger getting sucked in was practical, I love that his release is too: Rory Kinnear uses his body to block the opening, and Daniel Weyman comes out of a concealed opening.

Merimac the Stoor and the clues pointing the Stranger toward Gandalf

Nori and Poppy meet Merimac, a Stoor. Stoors are one of the three breeds of genealogical predecessors to Hobbits, along with Harfoots and Fallohides. Merimac introduces himself as nobody, which feels like it might be a reference to The Odyssey, when Odysseus cleverly tells the Cyclops his name is Nobody, so that after he stabs the Cyclops in the eye, the Cyclops complains that nobody blinded him and everyone else tells him to be quiet. We hear similar wordplay later with the line "nobody's that stupid."

We're definitely getting closer to revealing the Stranger as Gandalf, especially with all the talk of names being things you use yourself, the importance of his quest for this branch, and Tom's later line that a wizard's staff is like a name, yours to wield already. We also heard that the only wizard under these skies is the dark wizard, so maybe we could look at the Stranger and the Dark Wizard as the two Blue Wizards. I'm leaning more toward Gandalf, though.

The captain of the guard says the wizard has joined up with the hermit, which confirms Tom must be the hermit, and maybe the same hermit of the Hermit's Hat constellation. Apparently, according to JD and Patrick, every time we see the guards' masks, they were added with CGI to cover their faces, which is why they look so shiny. They did a pretty good job, but apparently they also had to ADR over what the actors were saying.

Goldberry and Tom Bombadil's 'Eldest' speech about Rhûn

Tom says folk used to call him Bombadil back in the Withywindle, a tributary of the Brandywine near where Tom lives in Fellowship. He has a song about it, of course. The Stranger asks who the other voice was, and we hear Tom call her Goldberry, who is Tom's wife in the Old Forest. Little is known about her origin, except that she is implied to be a river spirit of the Withywindle and is said to be the River-woman's daughter. Tolkien describes Goldberry as the seasonal changes of nature and Tom as the nature spirit of the English countryside, both primal spirits, he of the land and she of the water.

I'm curious about Tom's answer when asked if some other person is there. He says no, but it's probably because he doesn't consider her a person like himself. She's a spirit, a force of nature. I love how aloof and chill Rory Kinnear plays this. It could be that only Tom can see the spirit. In fact, she might have been the wind that blew the map out of the Stranger's hand, so any moving fluid, whether water or wind, is what she is.

Tom calls himself eldest, saying he was there before the river and the trees and remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn. That comes from Fellowship: "Eldest, that's what I am." Tom also says he knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless, and adds that this old place used to be green and is now all sand. I think we're getting backstory on Rhûn, and I wonder if the people of the East served Morgoth in the First Age and the Valar punished it by turning it into a desert. I'm pretty sure that phrase about the dark under the stars applies to Morgoth, or to whatever the Shadow is.

Barrow-wights on the Barrow Downs and Arondir in the mud

The elves hear a voice in the wind on the Barrow Downs. This is a Barrow-wight chant from the Old Forest section of the book that Fran and Philippa gave to Gollum in The Two Towers when he was creeping everyone out by talking to himself. In the vocal mix, one of the voices sounds like Andy Serkis's Gollum. We learn Sauron's return has so poisoned this land that these dark spirits have reanimated, and Elrond puts his nerdy trivia to use, realizing you need the wights' own entombed weapons against them. He even says "according to the lore," which is perfect.

Arondir, Isildur and Estrid go looking for Theo, and Estrid proves her loyalty despite her burned over mark of Adar by saving them from the mud. It's another example of the power of tree branches and staffs: she uses a stick to free them, though she ends up prodding a mud worm. Arondir cuts himself out and says there are nameless things in the deep places of this world, and "this one you shall call supper." It's a cool line, and another example of the ancient things of this world not always having names, like the Stranger or Tom calling himself simply eldest.

Sadoc Burrows and the origin of the Shire

The name Sadoc Burrows is recognized as that of a descendant of a Stoor ancestor who dreamed one night of a place with endless streams of cold water and rolling hills so soft a family could dig a hole and live in it in less than a month. He gave it another name for the Shire, so this series is explaining the Shire's origin.

I love the idea that it's a biblical promised land for these wandering tribes, and that by the time we meet Bilbo and Frodo there, they're basking in a land of milk and honey.

Galadriel's vision through Nenya

Galadriel touches Nenya and experiences a vision. In those few seconds, Sauron grabs his three pointed crown, Elrond is held by Orcs with a knife to his throat, and Orcs topple the statue of Fëanor in a courtyard. I'm pretty sure that's Gil-galad and Elrond on the right being forced to watch. Then Celebrimbor falls on his face, and Sauron, in a darker haired, Mordor flavored Halbrand look, looks down at Galadriel.

I'm pretty sure we're hearing Bear McCreary's 'Last Temptation' track here, which includes Halbrand's theme. Galadriel is being corrupted with confusion between a possible future and destiny, between a worst case scenario and the one fated path she is walking down and forcing her life into.

The Entwives Winterbloom and Snaggleroot in Pelargir

In Pelargir we meet Ents. The one with blooms is the Entwife Winterbloom, voiced by Olivia Williams, and the male is Snaggleroot, voiced by Jim Broadbent. By the Third Age, Treebeard said the Entwives had disappeared after leaving their husbands, so it's unclear what happened between now and then. Maybe they were destroyed by Sauron after setting up a new forest, or maybe they were betrayed by their husbands and walked away, which the line about forgiveness taking an age might be hinting at.

Arondir says he is Arondir of the Greenwood. This might suggest he's from Greenwood the Great, which would justify why he speaks Sindarin when calming Winterbloom and apologizing. He did say he was born in Beleriand, but maybe after it sank he was raised in the Greenwood.

Winterbloom's reply, "forgiveness takes an age," speaks to how long it will take Ents to trust creatures like this again in the Third Age, and to the show's deeper themes. Is forgiveness possible? Is change possible? Yes, but it takes an age, and maybe only characters who live that long, like elves, Númenóreans descended from elves, Ents and Tom Bombadil, can realize it. Their idea of peace, what comes after the night storms, when the dawn is silent and the birds awaken, parallels Tom remembering ancient times. And when Arondir calls Theo Lord of Pelargir, if that title sticks, it could put Theo on a course to become a royal figure like the Ringwraiths.

Galadriel's fire arrows and Adar calling her Altáriel

On the map, we see the Orcs' war path as they fell trees, and the ink of those trees is erased. Galadriel heals an arrow wound with Nenya and hands the ring to Elrond while she faces the Orcs. The action is smooth: she snatches a torch and turns her arrows into flaming ones in one motion, then throws a lantern into the air and splits it with an arrow to rain fire down on the Orcs. But she's knocked off her horse, and Adar extinguishes her arrow.

Adar calls her Altáriel, the Quenya name her husband Celeborn gave her and which she loved so much that she referred to herself as Galadriel, the Sindarin version of the same name. Celeborn isn't on the show, and they've never given a good reason why. So is it a possible term of endearment, or is Adar using it mockingly because she's wearing her hair wrapped in a crown?

'A star shines on the hour of our meeting' and Tolkien's love of language

Equally important are Adar's words, a star shines on the hour of our meeting, which he speaks in Quenya. Frodo speaks them when he meets the elf Gildor in Fellowship. The phrase also comes up in a letter Tolkien wrote to his son, saying a fan once asked whether The Lord of the Rings was an allegory, and Tolkien said he was trying to create a situation where that phrase would be a common greeting. From that, people have inferred the book was an exercise in Tolkien's love of language.

Tolkien, I don't care what you think. You lived through two world wars and watched your son go off to war in World War II. The Eagles were the Americans. I think it's okay for us to set aside your authorial intent and say the story is about World War II. But if you ask Tolkien, language was his way into his own story. He was a linguist who loved the sound of words and putting them together in beautiful ways, and that's why he's one of the most significant writers in the English language.