“There is a tempest in me.” Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) is speaking of the forces that drive her, but in the fourth episode of Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, “The Great Wave,” she could be speaking for any of our heroes. She might also be speaking of the uniquely tempestuous relationship between a parent and their child — the ways they wound and trust and protect and fail their kids. “Adar” means father, after all. Where does parental authority heal, and where does it buckle?

In Númenor’s palace, mothers and their infants have gathered with Queen Regent Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson). “In this court we gather daily to hammer out our island’s future. But at the Blessing of the Children, we gather to welcome those who will live that future, one as boundless as a sunrise over the rolling sea,” she says, cradling an infant. But the rolling sea will have its own say. The palace begins to shake, and suddenly a blizzard of white petals rushes into the hall. The white tree, the symbol of the watchfulness and the judgment of the Valar, is shaking its petals loose.

As she watches, rooted to the spot like the tree itself, an enormous wave rushes over the island, crumbling its edifice, flooding furiously into the palace itself, submerging Míriel and the future she cradles in her arms. It should’ve been clear this was a vision — we’re only four minutes in! — but it’s so overwhelming that I shouted some un-Tolkien–like words in shock. She opens her eyes in a sunlit (and extremely dry) bedroom. “It is a perfect day!” her lady in waiting announces. Míriel would likely settle for “not apocalyptic.”

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The bully Halbrand (Charlie Vickers) smashed up is now stoking anger in a crowded courtyard: “I say the queen’s either blind or an elf lover, just like her father.” Chancellor Pharazôn (Trystan Gravelle) interrupts chants of “elf lover” to pledge “I swear that elf hands will never take Númenor’s helm.” He sends wine to the crowd, trusting that a little lubrication will grease these alarmingly squeaky wheels. In this suddenly celebratory mood, we get something of a meet-cute: Pharazôn’s son, Kemen (Leon Wadham) chats up new apprentice Eärien (Ema Horvath) as she watches the crowd.

In the palace, Míriel examines the scrolls Galadriel brought back from the Hall of Lore. Galadriel calls on her to reforge the alliance with the elves and fight Sauron, together. Míriel says this is the “most surprising and ambitious” proposal she’s heard in weeks (only weeks?!), but Númenor will not join the fight. The women began the scene on equal footing, but now Galadriel towers above Míriel from the dais, ringed by a halo of lanterns, looking every inch the elf ruler that Pharazôn promised would never rise in Númenor. She dismisses the queen regent’s authority in favor of her deposed father. The result? She is locked behind the bronze bars of the jail, two cells down from Halbrand.

On the ocean with the other cadets, Isildur (Maxim Baldry) looks across the sea to Númenor’s rocky western shores. He hears the mysterious whisper again: “Isildur,” the sun-golden coast calls to him. He lets slip his rope, and the sail master dismisses him, just as he hoped — but he also dismisses Isildur’s friends. Back on land, Isildur's promise to get his devastated friends reinstated only makes things worse. “Since I was big enough to hold an oar I wanted on that boat. I did everything I was supposed to do to earn it,” Valandil (Alex Tarrant) shouts. “And what did you do? What have you ever done but brood and blubber about your dead brother?” That bit of exposition earns him a slap across the face. This friendship has run aground.

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Image via Prime Video

Also in real trouble — Arondir (Ismael Cruz Cordova), chained in the orcs’ lair. At last, Adar (Joseph Mawle) comes into view, one side of his face covered in a spiderweb of scars. To our surprise and Arondir’s, he has the pointy ears of an elf. Adar kneels by an injured orc and smiles with what, on another face, might be gentleness as the orc’s blood-red eyes open and a final rapturous “Adar” — “Father” — escapes his lipless mouth. Adar stabs the injured orc, holding his gaze until he breathes no more. Adar asks, in Elvish, where Arondir was born. “You have been told many lies,” Adar says. “Some run so deep even the rocks and roots now believe them. To untangle it all would all but require the creation of a new world.” Like, say, a kingdom of evil in the Southlands? “But that is something only the gods can do, and I am no god.” Adar says. “At least, not yet.” Uh-oh.

Adar gives Arondir a message to carry back to the watchtower, where streams of Southlanders are greeted by Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi), who has taken charge. Rations are running low, and Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin) suggests a run back to town to get food. But Bronwyn will not send her son into danger. “You can either help me, or you can make it harder,” she warns. Unsurprisingly for a headstrong mother’s headstrong son (who also happens to be in possession of an evil whispering sword trying to remake itself), Theo chooses “harder.” He goes back to the abandoned village anyway, and is quickly surprised by an orc. Theo holds out the broken sword to protect himself, which bursts into flame and begins reforging itself in the heat of violence. The orc yells to his company that Theo “has the hilt” — could this be the weapon they’ve been cleaving through the Southlands to find?

Based on Celebrimbor’s (Charles Edwards) suspicions, Elrond (Robert Aramayo) has returned to Moria to find out what Durin (Owain Arthur) is hiding. Disa (Sophia Nomvete) tells Elrond he can find Durin in the quartz mine, but Elrond doesn’t buy it. Disa’s expansive warmth turns icy. “Was there anything else you wanted to ask about, dearie?” she inquires, but it sure sounds like “You can go now.” But Elrond was right — he overhears Durin telling Disa that they’re “making good progress in the old mine.” In search of his friend’s secret, Elrond descends into a hidden chamber, where he finds rocks riven with veins of glowing silvery purple. But before he can see more, Durin catches him, and demands Elrond’s oath of silence before he’ll fill him in. Elrond swears, hand to mountain, on the memory of his father.

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Durin shows Elrond the shining ore called “mithril,” which is “lighter than silk, harder than iron.” Durin thinks it’s the beginning of a new era for dwarves, but it’s perilous to mine and has been restricted by the king. Durin gives the nugget to Elrond as a token of their mended friendship. But then the ground shakes and a cloud of dust fills the room — the earth has swallowed the four miners currently digging for mithril.

From a friendship mended to friendships sundered, we sail back across the bridge-top canals of Númenor. While Kemen shoots his shot with Eärien, Galadriel paces in her cell, mostly swatting away Halbrand’s advice. Pharazôn arrives to inform Galadriel that she’ll be shipped (literally) back to the elves tonight. She is released from her gilded cage into a circle of guards. But it’s not only Halbrand who can defeat a gaggle of men single-handedly; in an instant, they’ve replaced her behind the bronze bars.

Galadriel marches straight into the deposed king’s bedchamber. But she’s greeted by the queen regent herself, gently tending to her ailing father. This vulnerability is enough to swamp the distrust between them — Galadriel even says “please” at one point! Míriel finally comes clean: when she was chosen to replace her father on the throne because of his allegiance to the elves, he brought her to the tower chamber where Míriel, swathed in a green of the forest rather than ocean blue, now brings Galadriel. She shows the elf what is hidden: the dark marbled orb of a palantir, one of seven seeing stones, passed on to Míriel along with a secret.

Galadriel places her hand upon it. She finds herself inside Míriel’s vision, but now it's Galadriel swept away by the crash of water. “It is Númenor’s future,” Míriel explains, and Galdriel’s arrival is what begins it. Galadriel argues that avoiding the war may be the thing that drowns Númenor. “I know what it is to be the only one — the only one who sees, the only one who knows,” Galadriel pleads gently. “Perhaps neither of us have to bear that burden alone any longer. I beg of you, Míriel, choose not the path of fear, but that of faith.” But Míriel cannot.

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In the Southlands, Theo attempts to escape his destroyed village. But an orc catches him, and Theo is spattered with blood. It’s not his own — Arondir has arrived and run the orc through. They sprint through the gray dawn of the forest, and as arrows slice through the air, Bronwyn arrives, searching for her son. Arondir holds off the legion of orcs until they arrive in a clearing, bathed in the rose gold of a sunrise, where the orcs cannot follow.

Back in the mines, Disa is resonating, her powerful voice echoing off the walls in “a plea to the rocks to release the bodies of the miners with breath still inside them.” Her song worked — Durin arrives with the news that all four are alive and free. But Durin’s father shut the project down and wants the vein of mithril sealed off, infuriating Durin. Elrond’s own father was “lifted beyond the bounds of this world, to forever carry the evening star across the sky.” A great honor — and a great weight on the son left behind to grapple with his legacy and his absence.

Inspired by Elrond’s words, Durin asks his father’s (Peter Mullan) forgiveness for his pride and stubbornness. The king, gazing down upon his lamplit kingdom of stone and ore, will not hear it: “Forever am I with you, my son. Even in anger. Sometimes in anger most of all. There is nothing to forgive.” The dwarves stay modeling healthy family relationships! They agree that Durin will travel with Elrond to Lindon — something more is afoot than what they’ve been told.

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At the tower, Arondir delivers Adar’s message to Bronwyn: the people can live if they forsake the lands and swear loyalty to him. As they gaze down at the community of necessity Bronwyn has made, her son sits in the shadows. A hole of blackness ready to swallow him from behind, just as another darkness approaches: Waldreg (Geoff Morrell) reveals himself as a follower of Sauron who knows Theo has the hilt. He says the starfall was a sign that Sauron’s time is near. Theo will need his strength for “what’s coming.”

In Númenor, Galadriel boards the boat waiting to take her away, the second time she’s unwillingly set to sea. As Míriel and Pharazôn walk through the streets, another blizzard of white petals begins to fall. But this is no vision: The tree is shedding its petals in truth, blanketing the kingdom in the Valar’s tears. Míriel understands its meaning. “There is a fateful hour in the destinies of men,” she tells the assembled kingdom. “An hour of judgment in which each of us, every one, must decide who we shall be.” She will escort Galadriel back to Middle Earth to aid the Southlands in their fight. The sons and daughters of Númenor, those living embodiments of the future, may volunteer to join them. A new great wave washes through the palace — one not of water, but of brave hands rising into the air. Previous episodes ended with mysterious men and intentions unknown. But here at the midpoint of the season, the last thing we see is the steely gazes of Galadriel and Míriel, women who know exactly who they are and what they must do.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premieres new episodes weekly every Friday on Prime Video.