The farce is complete, this is just LOTR fan fiction Congrats, if you made it this far. Let's summarize this nonsense.
-So as everyone and their aunt guessed, Halbrand is Sauron of course. No big surprise, the one character who is not from any official material. Except, his plan makes zero sense. Did he pretend to be a Human, have Adar kill his fake family (because Adar clearly did not recognize him 2 episodes ago), escape to raft with other southlanders and just... HOPE that Galadriel will jump off the ship and somehow, get to that specific raft???
And yes, we get the whole "Join me and we shall rule Middle Earth as father and son... I mean, king and queen!" speech alongside the other evergreen classic, "We are not so different, you and I..." because yes, sure, the person who hunted you for centuries will believe you just want peace and redemption. Pull the other one. And apparently he can just enter people's minds and make them see anything? Seems like an useful power that he should have used before to get Miriel to do what he wanted... instead of relying on Galadriel to convince her with words. Though, again, why did he even need all this charade? The writers probably thought the whole Annatar thing would be too simple (where, as in the original books, he shows up as an Elf from faraway lands bringing the gifts of the ring-creation), so instead he does this roundabout nonsense to get to Celebrimbor, instead of showing up as an Elf who'd be instantly trusted.
The worst part? Now, we will have the Dark Lord, the main antagonist of Lord of the Rings, be played by this super mediocre and boring actor for who knows how many seasons. Great. The showrunners also said Sauron will be "Like Joker, an antihero" and that just fills me with dread.
-Galadriel remains insufferable. Upon returning to Eldriador, she all but tells Elrond "yes, you were wrong" and never says "I effed up by staying behind". Then when she finds out Halbrand is Sauron and awakens to be greeted by Elrond she does the classic "how to identify a shapeshifter" trick by asking him something only the two of them know. Except... did she just forget that Sauron a minute ago was in HER MIND showing her a memory of her brother Finrod, that ONLY SHE KNEW? Dumb, dumb, dumb...
Then, inexplicably, she does not tell the others that the idea for how to save the Elves comes from their sworn enemy, no, she lets them proceed. I half expected the show to pull another trick that this Galadriel is Sauron, and we will cut to the real one waking up, but no, I gave this show more credit than it deserves. It really is THAT badly written. So everything is Galadriel's fault and she does not even have the courage to admit Sauron is back?
-For some reason, the rings need silver and gold from Valinor and somehow the only such item they have is Finrod's shortsword/dagger? For reals???I get it, OMG Symbolism!!! But still felt forced. The Elves probably brought a LOT of that stuff from Valinor with them.
-Despite the show trying to fool us before the opening, of course the Stranger was Gandalf. Not called by name, maybe Amazon does not have the rights, or they wanna milk the reveal, but clearly it is him. "Follow your nose", "Return to the shadow from whence you came!" - direct lines from Gandalf from Lord of the Rings... the whole adventure speech, it all adds up to that. Again, I gave the show more credit than they deserve, I assumed the Morgoth/Sauron cult are trying to trick him and bring him to the real Sauron to be killed or corrupted, but no, these idiots really did not recognize an Istari and really thought he was Sauron. Why would Sauron even lose his memory and need to learn his powers? Why would he fall from the sky as a meteor, when we has been on Middle-Earth? The last war ended centuries ago, he did not just arrive back, he has been around for a long time.
I am not even surprised that the three ladies have ridiculously powerful abilities. Not even Gandalf or Saruman had such powers - shapeshifting, immunity to fire and the ability to create and control fire at will? The Dweller (who oddly never talks, maybe was not paid for it?) can even do the whole force-push thing Saruman and Gandalf did in Fellowship. I mean, why be surprised, these people care nothing about the lore, but magic is not something regular Humans and Elves can do...
And then, after grabbing the staff, Gandalf banishes them because... they are RINGWRAITHS??? BEFORE the rings have even been forged? WTF is this shit...?
-At least Sadoc died. I expected him to say at the end "nah, I cannot go on so leave without me, same way we left you and your family behind because of a twisted ankle." Then inexplicably, despite Gandalf having re-grown the whole apple orchard, the others just continue their wanderings instead of staying at this lush and plentiful place? And despite Nori telling Gandalf that one adventure has been enough, and clearly having learned his lesson and wanting to settle back to normalcy, her family pushes her away to follow her heart and leave. I guess the writers thought it was poignant, I saw it as more proof that everyone hates Nori and wants her to leave.
-Not much happens in Númenor except Elendil and Míriel talking a bit using sentences no real human would ever use. And the king dies, so sad, pity we never knew anything about him. I am reminded of how Viserys died just the same week on House of the Dragon, and how touching and sad that moment has been, because I truly liked and cared about him.
I literally laughed at the screen when they started the really badly sung Legend of the Rings at the end, because -- this makes no sense this way anymore. If Sauron wanted all other rings bound to the One, he needed to forge it already, and he doesn't even have mithril. Whoopsy-doodle! The song even says "the Dark Lord in Mordor" and I was like, Sauron does not even know it is called Mordor - Adar never told anyone but his Orcs!
Maaan I am morbidly curious how much worse this thing can get in season 2? Maybe a civil war between Adar and Sauron... though given his powers, it would be over quick. And we completely skipped the forging of the rings - nor do we even have human and dwarf kings they could be given to, only Durin III. Where will the Witch-King of Angmar come in? Surely these writers cannot resist to give him a tragic origin, where for one whole season we will believe he is a good guy. Or maybe they will just turn him into the Witch-Queen of Angmar? Apparently, Círdan is coming in season 2 too, can't wait to see how they mess him up. Maybe Celeborn will be revealed to be alive, waiting centuries for his wife to come for him... in vain.