I agree with pretty well all your point, RogueLeader.

I know that a lot of people seem to think this episode was a let down due to loss of momentum, but that’s kind of how all of Tolkien is, a repeated pattern of events and quiet recharge transitions to the next event. This episode fit that pattern quite well.

The question remains how or if they will land the season. Will we get a Sauron reveal? A Stranger reveal? A Galadriel full-circle resolution with Elrond or GilGalad?

From a fan-editing perspective, this whole thing is pretty tricky. There’s a lot of detail that was seemingly out there very intentionally, but there are also some baffling transitions and particulars. Some of the issues can easily be solved with slight kind trims, but if you cut some controversial things you’re going to also lose the connected parallelism.

With the idea of a movie edit, I’ve been toying with the idea of moving the entire Dwarf and Elrond story out into what would become movie 2. That would reduce the number of plot threads that the audience must track, keep the focus on Galadriel and the Harfoots, maintain Numenor as the big scenic location, and allow us to bring in the Southlands more organically as Galadriel realizes their importance. Another bonus would be holding back the strange Mithril plotline until we can know more fully where it’s going.

Perhaps even more dramatically, I’m thinking that the volcano stuff could be made more palatable in two ways:

Cut out the tunnel digging while Arondir is a prisoner. Instead, have him brought directly to Adar. This would also remove the question about how his army buddies were captured. When the water flows through the tunnels, we will assume that they were pre-existing, part of an ancient system that was designed to do this.
Cut the whole water and tunnel sequence, so that we aren’t sure what exactly happens when the key is turned. Just have the guy turn the key, the ground shake, and the volcano blow.