“Not all who wonder or wander are lost,” sings Poppy (Megan Richards), the last Proudfellow left in the Harfoot caravan, in her left-behind mother’s walking song. In “Partings,” the fifth episode of Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, wanderers and wonderers from across the map will test that tune. When is coming home again good, and when is it perilous? When do we strike out for lands unknown? What if home itself is a land unknown? And what do we risk for our fellow travelers along the way?

Welcome back, Harfoots! I missed you! Nori (Markella Kavenagh) is teaching the Stranger (David Weyman) language (“Snails?”) and about the Harfoots’ migrations. There’s “a hundred perils ‘tween here” and the Grove — humans, wolves, a variety of trolls. “I’m peril,” the Stranger says with alarm, remembering the extinguished fireflies in his palm. But Nori assures him he’s good, a word he’s much happier to learn. “I’m good,” he repeats. Let’s hope so. As the Brandyfoot party creeps through the Grey Marshes, across waterfalls and the Braids, through thunderstorms and teas and shared laughter, Poppy sings: “Past eyes of pale fire, / black sand for my bed, / I trade all I’ve known for the unknown ahead.”

Images of the starfall suddenly burn through the song’s spell, the Stranger at the crater’s center like the dark pupil of an eye of fire. The fires have long since burned out, but its mystery hasn’t. Above the charred hole, whispers in the wind carry us to three mysterious figures, pale-eyed and swathed in white. One climbs and places a hand above the crater’s singed dirt. They feel… something. And they don’t look too happy about it.

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At the tower in the Southlands, Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi) addresses the refugees, a burst of blue against the gray stone. “I know I’m not the king you have awaited, but if you choose to stand with me and fight, this tower will no longer be a reminder of our frailty, but a symbol of our strength,” she vows. But early success turns to mutiny. “You will die. I say it’d be better to take our chances bowing to the supposed enemy,” Waldreg (Geoff Morrell) shouts. He calls Theo to follow him and dozens more as they stream out of the tower. Will he?

In Númenor, ships preparing to sail to the Southlanders’ aid clog the harbor. Amid all the bustle and noise, Elendil (Lloyd Owen) is mostly giving Isildur (Maxim Baldry) the silent treatment. Isildur can’t go west until he’s “done something worthy of Númenor,” and he wasn’t chosen to go on the expedition. Elendil will not help him — Isildur made his choice when he got himself kicked off the Sea Guard. But while half the city wants on the boats, the other half is screaming at Pharazôn (Trystan Gravelle) to stop the war. Eärien (Ema Horvath) is one of them, and enlists Kemen (Leon Wadham) with a tender hand on his arm.

Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), meanwhile, is forging a blade in the armory. How’d he get that guild crest? Hold that thought — he is summoned to Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson). On Galadriel’s (Morfydd Clark) assurances and over his protests, she trusts he’ll be helpful when they make landfall. Left alone to their private battle, Galadriel and Halbrand argue over who is using who. It turns out the price of his guild crest was leaking Galadriel’s plan the night she broke into the tower. “Find another head to crown,” he spits, breaking their uneasy alliance and ripping his people’s sigil from his neck.

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The Harfoot migration trundles through an unnaturally barren forest. Leafless branches slice into the gray day, and Nori finds enormous wolf prints in the mud. But the biggest peril may come from within. Malva (Thusitha Jayasundera), always good for a gross dose of Harfoot humor, says “it’s as plain as lip fungus” that “the big fella” is to blame for the trees’ strange lifelessness. She wants the Brandyfoot party stranded — “take their wheels and leave them.” Way harsh, Malva. Sadoc (Lenny Henry) doesn’t say yes, but he sure doesn’t say no.

None the wiser, Nori and Poppy find Malva to tell her about the footprints. Right on cue, the screaming howls of the wolf rip through the air, sending the women racing back to camp. But they’re too late — enormous wolves sprint after them (reader, I shrieked). One leaps at them, opening its dripping jaws to tear at Nori. But instead, it’s lifted into the air and tossed aside by the Stranger, who now stands between his friends and the animals. They are perils. He is good. He pounds the earth and the wolves are flung away by the tremor. He has saved his friends but hurt himself — a serpent of purple-black winds from his wrist to his forearm.

In Númenor, Valandil (Alex Tarrant) and Ontamo (Anthony Crum) practice sword fighting under Elendil’s watch. He suggests Galadriel offer her expertise — just the invitation she’s been craving. “Come at me. We will see who can score flesh,” she tells five trainees, and Elendil offers a promotion to anyone who can get a point on her. She flits away from Valandil’s strokes without batting an eye, then bats away Ontamo’s blows like flies. All five rush her at once, and she slips through their swords like water without once losing her smirk. But Valandil manages to knick the material on her arm. Congratulations, Lieutenant Valandil! Speaking of arms, Kemen would very much like Eärien to touch his again, so he works on Pharazôn to stop the expedition. When he insists that Pharazôn “would rather die than take orders from an elf,” it unstops his father’s ears for once. “When all this is ended, elves will take orders from us.” Pharazôn wants to give the men of Middle Earth a king in Númenor’s debt — the war is a tool for trade and power. It was capitalism all along!

The Stranger’s derring-do has changed the Harfoots’ tune, but he doesn’t hear Nori tell him so — he’s working on a remedy for his wound, magically turning a puddle to ice. The chill climbs up his arm like frozen ivy, and Nori gets hers stuck in the frost. She begs him to stop, but he continues his incantation until she is flung through the air. The memory of his fiery fall to Middle Earth flashes as she plummets to the ground. He comes back to himself as Nori cowers and runs from his touch. Is he good, after all? Or is he peril?

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At a candlelit forest dinner party in Lindon, Elrond (Robert Aramayo) toasts the union of the elves and dwarves. King Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker) commends Durin (Owain Arthur) on Khazad-dûm’s progress. Durin might note the same of Lindon’s swift expansion — “Typically takes you people weeks to decide to take a sh—” Elrond saves his friend (and the TV-14 rating) by cutting him off and defusing the obvious tension. But after dinner, Elrond and Gil-galad each accuse the other of lying. The king leads Elrond to the yellow tree where he “rewarded” the soldiers with their homegoing. Sending Galadriel away didn’t work — black blight is spiderwebbing up the tree’s trunk and into its mighty branches, seeping into the veins of the leaves. “The light of the Eldar, our light, is fading,” Gil-galad says. Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) later confirms: only Durin’s mithril can bring it back and, just maybe, save the world from the gathering evil. Elrond is left holding his chunk of mithril under the stars, weighing the fate of his people against his vow to his friend.

Back in Númenor, Isildur calls on his own friend Valandir to get him on a boat. But like Elendil, love and history (and in this case, free punches) aren’t enough to do another favor for a man who hasn’t earned those he’s already been given. Valandir can’t — won’t — help. So Isildur stows away on a ship, just in time for Kemen to try to burn it down under cover of darkness. They tussle, and the boat explodes. Amid the raining fire and debris, Isildur swims to the dock, dragging a wounded Kemen, and is delivered into the waiting embrace of Elendil. Has saving the son of the chancellor — and covering for his attempted arson — earned Isildur his spot?

Halbrand would like very much to stay out of war altogether. He is sweeping the armory when Galadriel comes with an apology and a plea: “Stop fighting me and together let us fight them.” But he is still haunted — she doesn’t know what he did before he ended up floating on a raft in the Sundering Seas. Galadriel shares with him her brother’s words from centuries ago: “Sometimes to find the light, we must first touch the darkness.” Halbrand is sorry for all she’s been through, but she wants action, not sympathy. “There is…no lasting peace in any path but that which lies across the sea,” she says, closing his necklace in his fist.

But there may be no lasting peace in the Southlands either. The deserters have reached their burned out village and bent the knee to Adar (Joseph Mawle). “Lift us up from the muck and the filth to take our rightful place at your side,” Waldreg grovels. “I pledge my loyalty to Sauron.” At the sound of that name Adar turns ferociously, a scar-marked ghost against the empty blackness of the sky. “You are Sauron, are you not?” In answer, Adar grabs Waldreg by the throat and throws him to the ground. Is he Sauron, furious to be found out? Or is he another evil entirely, with Sauron still lying in wait? It’s all the same to Waldreg: “I’ll serve you, then, whoever you are.” Adar grabs Rowan (Ian Blackburn), forces him to his knees, and tosses a knife to Waldreg. “Only blood can bind,” Adar snarls over Rowan’s terrified pleading.

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Before we see Waldreg strike, we’re back in the tower, where Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin) has chosen to stay — and to trust Arondir (Ismael Cruz Cordova) by showing him the mysterious hilt. Arondir recognizes it, and pulls ivy from a stone wall to reveal its carved likeness behind the roots. “It’s a key,” Arondir tells Bronwyn, something to do with Adar’s desire to become a god. He believes they can survive the coming battle, but Bronwyn knows the way — give up. “We’re destined for the darkness. It’s how we survive,” Bronwyn says, her resolve broken as the torches of the orcs stream ever closer.

Also on the move: Durin’s escort back to Khazad-dûm through the golden Lindon forest, as elves carry the heavy stone table he tricked Gil-galad into giving up. Elrond may have broken his vow, but can still keep faith with this friend: he admits that he came to Khazad-dûm for mithril, though he did not know it. He tells Durin that without it, the elves’ only choices are to abandon Middle Earth or perish. Durin enjoys this unexpected power, then agrees to convince his father to let them mine it.

Halbrand has also made his choice about whom to stand with. He’s astride a horse, bathed in sunlight (and in water and soap!) as the war procession marches on. Míriel watches, golden in her armor as petals fall around her — not the white petals of the Valar’s tree, but the red and pink and purple ones of her people. The procession moves onto the warships, and Isildur, having finally done a deed worthy of Númenor, is part of it. Plus, his father has once again secured him an important job: mucking out the stables. There are two other passengers aboard: Galadriel, trading rippling gowns for the armor she cannot put away, and a newly regal Halbrand. They clasp arms. Sails unfurl. Wind blows. The ships set off, away from Númenor’s sun-warmed shores, bound for Middle-earth and for war.

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