I am thoroughly amazed.
Amazed how you take a franchise that is so beloved and so well created and turn it into garbage.
Even putting aside the entire woke agenda that the writers obviously valued more then the plot, the whole thing is just terrible.
The reveals were so completely forseeable that the "Mystery Characters" might as well have worn a sign telling you who they are, maybe a nameplate over their heads. If the writers really felt like they were creating a mystery then I can only pity them and advice them to go back to school and learn about mystery writing, if they didn't then I do not understand what the point of it all was.
They could have made the story very different by allowing us to see who is who from the start. Showing us how Sauron was manipulating events in the background, steering people into the positions where he wants them. That could have been interesting, similar to the Palpatine story.
At the moment it feels so contrived. Nothing would have happened if Galadriel hadn't convinced him to return with her. The second Dark Lord would not have existed at all, neither would the rings or the wars of the Third Age. It is now all Galadriels fault.
Not to mention how contrived it was how she finally got the message. She apparently studied all of Numenors library to figure out that Halbrand is of royal blood, but the texts there never stated that the line died, nor do any of the people living in the Southlands have any idea that their kings died out... only the texts in the elven city of all places finally tell her the truth. It's just a classical trope of bad writing, the reveal had to happen at this point, so the information was suddenly avaiable without any rhyme or reason why it is. Same with the line that Celebrimbor drops that makes her suspicious. It is such a specific line that you know it is only said to push Galadriel to the realization.
And then Sauron just poofs away. His work unfinished, neither killing Galadriel, nor erasing her memory or whatever. He just goes away and let's her ruin his plan. She just had to tell Celebrimbor that it wasn't a good idea after all. Okay, maybe he forsaw that she was actually dumb enough to still go through with the creation of the Rings despite knowing that it was what Sauron wanted... uuugh...
I also love how Galadriel doesn't tell anyone about Halbrand, ensuring that there is no reason anyone will stop him if he is seen. Why does she do this? Well, to protect herself of course. She is afraid the elves will think she was working with him the entire time. Something that Gil-Galad already suspected and the show proves him right...
Her constant arrogance and selfishness is unbelievable. She literally unleashed the Dark Lord on Middle-Earth because of her addiction to vengeance and now she helped him knowlingly... she might have as well joined Sauron, I just don't see how that would have changed her character for the worse.
Heck Sauron is the most understandable and relatable character in this, along with Adar. He wanted her to be his queen to rule over a world as a benevolent king. There is nothing even inherently evil about that. Without our preconceived notion of Sauron as the big bad, nothing in this series has told us that he would not be a good king. Both Gil-Galad and the Dwarf king have made terrible and selfish choices, yet we somehow are to think he would be worse? I am not buying it.
He is even aware that he might be corrupted and begs Galadriel to act as his counterweight to prevent this and her only reason for saying no is "You evul!!", like a child would reply. She has so little self-reflection that she doesn't understand that all the things she saw in him before are still there.
And even if she was completely convinced that he wasn't trustworthy, then she could have played along, tricked him into walking back into the city, where he could be surrounded by guards. But nope, she is convinced that she, with just a dagger, can kill the Dark Lord. Riiight...
Really, I hope for the next season they use some of those billions to hire some decent writers. This whole season was just painful to watch...