As I sat down to write this review of 'The Rings of Power' season 2, I could think of a few memorable moments. A swarm of butterflies coalesce into a humanoid figure. A chorus of singers communicates with the earth in beautiful harmony. A horde of spiders approaches a helpless prisoner, their lair so fetid you can almost smell it.

I can’t think of any characters that really interested me, or what emotions I felt as they journeyed through Middle-earth. That’s par for the course with this Amazon drama, the billion-dollar-plus, much-hyped prequel to “The Lord of the Rings.” Two years ago, the first season was initially met with polite praise from critics, who rightly praised the show’s visual worldbuilding while noting that the actual story wasn’t yet up to par. For audiences, however, “The Rings of Power” hit with a wallop that would reverberate throughout the dwarf settlement of Khazad-dûm. According to the Hollywood Reporter , only 37 percent of domestic viewers who started the eight-episode series watched it to the end. That’s hardly ideal for a mainstream release, let alone the most talked-about production in streaming history.

Season 2 offers no reason to believe those ratings will turn around. As for the season’s creative quality, the grace period for this lavish Tolkien homage has expired — though it’s questionable whether a project with so many resources to offer deserved one in the first place. (To be fair, reports that Jeff Bezos had commandeered Amazon’s answer to “Game of Thrones” colored perceptions of “The Rings of Power” well before its premiere, leading it to be compared to more than just Peter Jackson’s trilogy.) With a shape-shifting Sauron unmasked and the first set of titular bling forged, “The Rings of Power” finally has the faintest hints of narrative momentum. But the second half of this show, as gorgeous but flat as a kitchen backsplash, suffers from the same problems as the first, minus the confidence that those problems will ever go away.

Set in the Second Age of Middle-earth, between the mythic prehistory of The Silmarillion and the climax of The Lord of the Rings, The Rings of Power faces the same challenge as many of the prequels. Even the most inexperienced fantasy neophytes know that the elf Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) will not stop Sauron (Charlie Vickers) from creating the One Ring and establishing a power base in Mordor, and that when the human warrior Isildur (Maxim Baldry) cuts the Ring from Sauron's hand, it kills the villain's corporeal form but not his powerful influence. There is an enthusiastic, if limited, core fan base eager to see Isildur's birthplace of Númenor, an advanced but soon-to-fall human city, or the nomadic, pre-Shire hobbits, then known as harfoots. For everyone else, however, it is necessary to create tension or simply interest, regardless of the outcome that is already known.