Contains spoilers for this episode and earlier episodes.
Galadriel is alone at sea when she finds a raft carrying survivors of a shipwreck. Their brief shelter cannot withstand the sea creature pursuing them, and the attack leaves her with Halbrand, a man fleeing the Southlands. He tells her that Orcs drove him from his home, giving her a possible direction for the search she refused to surrender. A storm then threatens their remaining raft. Halbrand saves her from drowning, and they are discovered by an approaching ship whose occupants have not yet been introduced.
Elrond brings Celebrimbor to Khazad-dûm to seek help building a great forge. He expects a warm reception from Durin but must invoke a rock-breaking contest even to enter. Losing the contest brings a threat of banishment; the deeper injury is his absence from his friend's life for twenty years. Durin has married and raised children while Elrond treated their separation as brief. An apology and Disa's welcome reopen the friendship, allowing Durin to hear the proposal, though his father worries about the Elves discovering a secret below the mountain.
Nori and Poppy hide the Stranger and try to understand the constellation he forms with fireflies, which die when his magic ends. In the Southlands, Arondir enters a tunnel beneath Hordern and is captured. Bronwyn's warning initially fails until she and Theo kill an Orc inside their home. Its severed head convinces the villagers to seek refuge at Ostirith. Theo carries the broken sword, which responds to his blood.